Sandhogs: Life on the Ground
by ZGMF-x20A
Summary: Equipped with only what they can carry on their backs, 6th Company 127th Dragoons is assigned to one of the most difficult combat tasks of all, rescuing downed pilots. No matter where the pilots are shot down, the Sandhogs have to go in and get them back.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

* * *

In the Earth Federation and Duchy of Zeon's seemingly never ending quest to beat one another into submission, many different types of weapons were developed. Soon, mobile suits became the norm for combat on the ground, and in the skies. However, mobile suits are damaged, pilots are forced to eject and are left wandering uselessly around like babes in the wood. Realizing this, the Earth Federation and the Duchy of Zeon maintained their Corps of Infantry. Of these, the Federation's most infamous unit was the 127th Dragoons, 6th company, the Sandhogs. Equipped only with what they can carry on their backs, the Sand Hogs are tasked with one of the most thankless and dangerous jobs ever, going in and rescuing downed mobile suit pilots.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." Plato

* * *

Captain Alice Sims cringed at the whistle of incoming artillery shells. She had heard the sound often enough and she still found it to be extremely unsettling even if it was friendly. After making sure that there was nobody around to take pot shots at her, she pulled her tactical computer off her belt. Most of her commanders found it odd that her company only had 12 actual troops, compared to a normal company's 100 to 150 troops depending on the company's configuration. Stranger still, to an outsider, the number of troops she had was inflated from its normal eight troops by four troops on loan from the Federation's Special Air Service to give her twelve troops. While

"Ma'am, this is Travis we can't find this stupid fucker!" Her Medic, Lieutenant Evan Travis shouted over the tactical radio

"Damn it... Sparky, check the direction finder again!" Sims shouted at her electronics and coms tech, Technical Sergeant Mitch Rapp

"Says it's in this building ma'am but the damn mobile suits have too many satellites tied up in that battle and the sand storm ain't helpin much either!" Rapp replied

"RPG! GET DOWN!" Sims' SAS sniper and senior enlisted man, Master Sergeant Kieran 'Mick' McCorrason shouted

"Mick, I told you to kill that son of a bitch!" Sims shouted over the explosion of the RPG's warhead against a wall of the building

"I did, this is a different one." McCorrason replied with a laugh as he brushed some dirt off of his face and relit his ever present cigar

"Put that damn thing out and do your job!" Sims shouted as she brought her carbine to her shoulder and fired at a group of advancing infantrymen. Like all of her soldiers, except for her sniper and machine gunners, Sims carried the Mk-77 Infantry Combat Carbine. Based off of the L-85A2 bulpup combat rifle, but chambered to fire the much more powerful 6.5mm Grendel round, it could hit with pinpoint accuracy out to 500m and was more than capable of downing even armored infantry with a couple of well placed shots. Because she had not quite held the rifle quite right, her shots went wide and tore up the sidewalk instead of her intended target. Before she could correct for her miss, her Heavy Machine Gunners, SAS Sergeant Iosef Brezhnev and Lance Corporal Marcus Ferot opened up with their 7.62mm HK MG4Es.

"Captain, this is Jan, we've finished sweeping the damn building and the bastard just isn't here!" her XO, Lieutenant Batou Jan called over the radio

"Damn it all... Sparky, could he be in a different building?"

"He could be in the building across the street from us," Rapp said, after consulting with his direction finder's output on his helmet-mounted display.

"Could be here, could be there, hell for all I know he could be about ready to... never mind, I'm not gonna say that" Sims grumbled as she snatched one of McCorrason's flasks from his belt and took a swig, only to find that it was whiskey and not water.

"Wrong flask Cap'n," Kieran replied with a laugh when he saw her expression

"Damn you and your whiskey Mick!" She hissed after she gulped the whiskey down

"Damn me all you like Cap'n, but don't damn the whiskey." Kieran replied as he brought his DSR-1 up to his shoulder and ripped off one of his deadly accurate .338 Lapua rounds. The round's performance was nearly that of a 12.7mm HMG round and slammed through his target's body armor as if it was not there at all.

"Captain, I've got trucks headed this way from the east!" Corporal Velettia Tinkler, the company's anti tank specialist called over the radio from her position on the building's roof.

"Tinkler, can you take'em out?" Sims replied as she carefully crossed the building to have a look for herself

"I've only got one AT-4 left!" Tinkler replied.

"It's just a five ton with some infantry in the back, Sergeant Breakers and I can put a couple of 40's into the lead one," one of Sims' grenadiers Lance Corporal Vic Marco said,

"Vic, you take the damn truck, Breakers, you keep covering the door. If any of those fuckers come by..."

"INCOMING!" Kieran shouted as a column next to them exploded and showered everyone with concrete fragments

"APC on the southwest corner," Tinkler shouted as she brought her AT-4 to her shoulder and fired it into the turret of the APC. The HEAT round's molten copper Explosive Formed Penetrator ripped through the APC's thin turret top armor and detonated some of the internally stored ammunition. As the crew was attempting to escape, one of the APC's anti-tank guided missile warheads exploded, destroying the APC and its crew.

"Damn it all, where is the pilot?" Sims asked as she pulled a chunk of concrete out from between her tactical vest and her BDU jacket.

"I've got a better fix now that the battle to the east is dyeing down I can get a better fix..."

"Well where is the bastard?" Lt. Travis shouted

"In the building across the street..."

"The one I thought the bastard was in the first fucking place!" Sims shouted, "Listen up! Kieran get the hell up to the roof and keep the Zeeks tied up! Brezhnev get set up across from the target building door for suppressive fire! Breakers load a HE round and get ready to bust that damn door open. The rest of you get ready to storm search the building!" Sims ordered

"Ok boss, HEDP shell loaded and ready to break the doors down!" Breakers replied

"In position and ready for suppressive fire!" Brezhnev replied

"Kieran you in position yet?"

"Chill out... I'm in position. I'll deal with those guys coming from the five tonners!" Kieran said as he dropped his sniper rifle back on its sling and pulled out his Designated Marksman's Rifle. Kieran's DSR-1 was sighted in for 700m and beyond, and it only carried a five round magazine. Because of those limitations and the slower firing of its bolt action, Kieran also carried a highly accurate Designated Marksman's Rifle or DMR. Kieran's DMR was a hand built version of the Mk-14 EBR chambered to fire the same 6.8mm cartridge as the Mk-77. Taking full advantage of his rifle's deadly accuracy, he fired six rounds at the driver of the first five-ton truck. Kieran's first 6.8mm rounds slammed into the armored front windshield, cracking it and showering the driver with spall. Kieran's the fifth round impacted between his first four shots, shattering the polycarbonate window and punching an odd shaped hole through it. His sixth round passed through the hole created by the first five and killed the driver. The vehicle commander attempted to grab the steering wheel from his dead driver, but Kieran killed him with another six round burst. While the driver's foot was still on the five-tonner's accelerator, Kieran fired another six rounds at the vehicle. The driver side front wheel took all six rounds which destroyed the tire and caused the rim to fail.

The five ton truck's axle dug into the soft asphalt and caused the vehicle to pull hard to the right, Without a driver and down a wheel, the first five tonner swerved uncontrollably across the road until it slammed into a building.

The second 5-ton truck's driver slammed on his brakes to avoid colliding with the first truck but he was unable to stop his overloaded truck in time and the two trucks collided. Not quite satisfied with his handy work, he emptied the remaining twelve rounds in his magazine into the load bed of the first truck. He watched patiently for someone to climb out of either wrecked truck and begin taking command. His patience was rewarded a few seconds later as someone quickly began shouting orders at the dazed and confused Zeon troops. While he had been waiting for this opportunity, Kieran had reloaded his rifle and chambered a round. He leveled his crosshairs just above his target's ear and pulled the trigger. Figuring that he had overextended his welcome in that particular firing position, he ducked back below the lip of the roof and scurried back towards the stairs.

"What's the story Kieran?" Sims asked

"Relax cap, I've got'em tied up well enough; our six is secure for now but we've been static for far too long!" Kieran shouted, meaning that they had been sitting in one position for too long.

"Ok, once we're through the door you better catch up with us."

"I'll be fine." Kieran said

"Ok... Breakers hit it!"

"Master key outbound," Breakers said as he fired his grenade launcher at the door.

Because Breakers knew that the door its self would not be able to provide enough resistance to trigger the grenade's detonator, he aimed for the doorframe on the right side of the door. The 40mm HEDP round that Breakers fired was designed as a general purpose round, capable of penetrating light armor and bunker walls. While using it as a dynamic entry tool was not what its designers had intended it worked quite well. The explosion shattered the wooden door and ripped a large chunk of the wall near the doorframe out as well. Through the smoke and dust, a few Zeon infantry opened fire on Sims and her team, but they were ready for it and Brezhnev's MG-4 clattered into life in response.

"MONO EYE! MONO EYE!" Kieran shouted as he sprinted down the steps from the roof of the building

"What did you say?" Sims shouted over the radio

"There's a fucking Zaku coming! Grab some mud!" Kieran shouted as he caught sight of the team.

"Oh holy hell..." Sims muttered as she heard the Zaku's 120mm machine gun open fire.

"Sandhog Six, this is Walker Three get clear!" Sims mobile suit radio link squawked

"COVER!" Sims shouted as the friendly GM stepped around the corner firing its 90mm machine gun into the torso of the Zaku

"Holy crap..." Tinkler muttered as the stream of empty 90mm casings bounced off of the building and rattled around on the ground, a couple almost crushing her.

"Where's the pilot?" Sims shouted in Rapp's direction

"Second floor, northeastern corner!" Rapp replied, marking the position on each of the team's navigation HMDs.

"Watch the stairs!" One of Sims' riflemen shouted as a pair of Zeon infantry troopers opened fire

"They're done." Kieran said as he caught sight of them through a second floor window and pulled his DSR-1 up to his shoulder. After sighting them through the window, Frost fired his third .338 Lapua round of the engagement. The round was louder than of the other weapons on the battlefield, save for the mobile suits and Tinkler's AT-4. Everybody knew what it was and who had fired it even before the first Zeon infantryman was knocked off of his feet by the 16 grain Sierra Matchking round traveling at its maximum velocity of 820M/S. Kieran's second shot was a bit more dramatic, as the soldier brought his rifle to his shoulder just before he fired. The Lapua round was made of solid tungsten, sheathed in a thin core of lead to minimize barrel wear and its impact on the Zeon infantryman's rifle literaly shattered the rifle in his hands. Angry that his shot had not had the desired result, Frost zeroed in for a second shot, but one of the riflemen in the building caught him first.

"Keep moving!" Sims shouted as Tinkler and Marco dashed up the stairs, Mk-77s shouldered and ready to fire.

"I see'em," Tinkler called over the radio.

"Is he hit?" Sims asked.

"That's affirmative... shit he's messed up bad..."

"Ok Tinkler, I'm sending Doc in behind you guys, cover him."

"Yes ma'am."

"The rest of you secure the area. Rapp, call in the medivac team!"

"Roger that ma'am..." Rapp said as he adjusted his long range coms radio to the right frequency, "Centric Guard, Centric Guard this is Sandhog, how do you copy?"

"Sandhog, Centric Guard go ahead, we copy five by five."

"Centric Guard, Sandhog has recovered the package. Pilot is severely wounded and in need of immediate evac."

"Sandhog, Centric Guard copies... dispatching Medivac Helo and Convoy. ETA 10 and 20 minutes."

"10-4 Centric Guard, evac ETA 10 and 20." Rapp said, switching his radio to its tactical mode, "Captain, Centric Guard reports 10 on air and 20 on ground!"

"Roger that..." Sims said, looking over at Lt. Travis

"See if they can put a rush on one or the other he or ain't gonna make it!" Travis shouted

"Sandhog to all available assets, we have one critic wounded in need of immediate rapid evac!"

"Sandhog, Centric Guard. We've dispatched all available assets..."

"Centric Guard, this is Super Six Four, we're within five of the location..."

"Super six four, get over here!" Sims called

"Roger that Sandhog six; Super Six four inbound. Stand by on the roof; we'll do a hot pickup!"

"Roger that super six four! DOC..."

"I heard!" Travis shouted

"Don't hit the roof yet... Mick take your SAS boys up to the roof and clear the area!" Sims shouted

"Right, moving now!" McCorrason called as he waived to his detachment and pointed to the stairs. As they approached the roof, Brezhnev squared up on the door, with Master Sergeant Wilson 'Soap' Wash behind him, and Sergeant Ken 'Gaz' Falcon behind them. Brezhnev delivered a powerful kick to the wooden door on Mick's signal and the four of them sprinted through the door.

"Clear!" Brezhnev shouted as he set himself up on a corner of the building

"Clear!" Kieran shouted from his corner

"Clear!" Gaz shouted from over on his corner

"Clear!" Mick shouted, as he activated his tactical radio, "Six, the roof is clear! Negative hostile contact around the building."

"Roger that, we're moving up!" Sims shouted as she waived the remainder of her team up the stairs.

"Visual contact... pair of fire teams headed this way." Mick reported as he slid the safety off on his EBR

"Sandhog, super six four... mark LZ with smoke!"

"Roger that, marking with orange smoke!" Sims shouted as she pulled a smoke grenade off of her tactical vest and set it off.

"Orange smoke sighted, we're on approach!" The pilot of Super Six Four, Colonel Michel Brembo, replied as he brought his tilt rotor in. The door gunner closest to Kieran's side caught sight of the fire teams that Kieran was firing at and opened fire with his minigun. Kieran cringed as a storm of 8mm rounds passed too close for comfort and ripped the fire teams to shreds.

"Crap..." Kieran grumbled as he caught sight of the devastation the door gunner caused.

"Let's go Mick!" Sims shouted from the tail ramp

"I'm coming!" McCorrason shouted over the increasing whine of the tilt rotor's twin turboprop engines. Just as the pilots began to lift the tilt rotor off the roof, McCorrason took a powerful stride and leapt onto the ramp. As his boots hit the grip-textured ramp, he wrapped his hand through the cargo netting and hauled himself into the passenger bay.

"GO GO!" Sims said over the intercom after McCorrason was past the threshold.

"We're rollin!" The Brembo shouted as he red lined his engines to clear the hostile zone as quickly as possible.

"We're in so much trouble with Centric Guard..." Brezhnev said with a rueful shake of his head as McCorrason dropped into one of the available seats

"Don't I know it?" McCorrason replied as he pulled his helmet off.

"Don't worry, I'm the one that's gonna catch all the hell." Sims said as she sat down next to McCorrason

"Like a proper officer; it's good to see you're learning." McCorrason replied.

"You watch it Sergeant, or I'll drag your ass along."

"And what, if anything would that accomplish" McCorrason asked with a sardonic grin

"Well, I might just spin it to the CO, and show off a little cleavage. And he'll get to wondering why a battle hardened First Sergeant would let me, an innocent, young, Captain do such a foolish thing."

"You try that." McCorrason said with a grin,

"What do you know?"

"While we were out in the sandbox, old baldy was supposed to be transferred out 'cause of his promotion. Word has it that the new commander is a woman. She probably won't take too kindly to the innocent young woman's cleavage routine." McCorrason said, in his most scholarly tone.

"I agree..." Soap said with a laugh, "You might be able to bribe us with it every so often, but somehow… I don't think it'll work on her."

"Yeah… somehow, I get the feeling that I shouldn't try that little stunt."

"That's a wise idea..." McCorrason whispered to Brezhnev, "when we touch dirt, I say we bail."

"Agreed." Brezhnev replied,

"What are you two planning?" Sims asked.

"Ain't planning nothin ma'am," McCorrason replied.

"Don't bullshit me; I know a thing or two about working with you old sergeants."

"Sure thing Cap'n," Brezhnev replied as he tightened his grip on the cargo webbing as the pilots banked around for the final approach.

"Where is everybody?" Tinkler asked as she looked through one of the windows.

"Dunno..." Breakers replied looking out the window by him.

"The morons are in the crash shelters... and they're even wearing flash suits!" Rapp said, twisting himself around to look out the window over his shoulder.

"I've got visual on three commander's jeeps 100 meters off the pad!" The pilot, Colonel Michael Brembo said.

"This isn't good." Sims grumbled.

"Everybody... snap your safeties on!" Brezhnev shouted over the increasing pitch of the turboprop engines as Brembo brought the tilt rotor's engines from their normal horizontal fight position to their vertical takeoff and landing mode.

"Naw... this is real bad..." Sims said as she caught sight of a trio of officers in full dress uniform

"This is gonna suck..." McCorrason said as he slid his whiskey flask off his belt.

"Don't worry; I can explain it away as medicinal." Travis said with a grin, as he tucked it away in the bottom of his backpack medical kit.

"Touchin' dirt in 1" Brembo called.

"Everybody make damn sure you've got your safeties set, and helmets on properly!" Sims ordered, staring directly at McCorrason.

"All ashore who's goin' ashore!" Brembo called as the tilt rotor's gear touched the ground and he brought the engines down to idle. The second the engines hit idle speed, the ground teams sprinted out from the crash hangers and split into three teams. The first team went right to the forward cabin hatch and popped it open; to assist with the wounded pilot's unloading. Contrary to standard operating procedure as it had been established previously, the ground team brought the pilot to the crash shelter next to the helipad before transferring him from the field stretcher to the hospital gurney.

Without needing to be told to, Sims and her company sprinted to the safety line so that Brembo could get his beloved Super Six Four clear of the landing pad for the next evac helicopter which was only two minutes out.

The whole situation struck Sims as extremely odd. She noticed the very tense expressions of the helipad's ground team. No congratulatory remarks, no ammunition techs around to replace the rounds they had expended. Even though they were on the ground and in 'friendly' territory, her brain was still in combat mode and her hands had not left stock of her rifle.

"You Captain Sims?" A severe looking woman standing off to the side by the commander's jeeps asked

"Yes ma'am." Sims replied as she peeled her helmet off

"Good, once you've showered and chainged into an appropriate unform come to my office immediately.

"Yes ma'am," Sims asked as she cast a wary glance in Mick's direction.

Kieran sat down at his customary table with the troops from the Sandhogs Company and Colonel Brembo. Given the differences in rank, and training, the group was a little strange to outsiders, but for them it provided enough varying viewpoints during the various discussions that invariably took place around the table. A transient helicopter squadron had taken up the tables across from them, and a back and forth discussion of the relative merits of a helicopter vs. a tilt-rotor began. As all such inner service rivalries, and especially those in the various base bars, the debate became quite boisterous.

"What is a tilt rotor?" One of the younger helicopter pilots asked.

"A wishy-washy queer that can't make up its mind if it's a helicopter or an airplane!" One of the senior pilots replied, to the laughter of the pilots around the helicopter squadron's tables

"Oh... Remind me again Sergeant, what is a Helicopter?" Tinkler asked, pulling out all of the stops on the dumb blond act.

"As I recall it, from my days in basic lo those many years ago... Hmm... Perhaps I have forgotten...Ah yes I remember it now! Helicopters are ugly, noisy, aircraft that don't so much fly as beat the air into submission!" Kieran said

"I'm sorry First Sergeant... perhaps your DI was working off of the old identification handbook. Helicopters are really a bunch of parts flying in relatively close formation, all rotating around a different axis. That work well until one of the parts breaks formation!"

"Is that so? Then what may I ask you is the fighter pilot's prayer?"

"God I hope they don't fall off?" Brezhnev called in reply, drawing the ire of all of the fighter pilots in the base's bar and the laughter of everyone else in the bar.

"I'm sorry, buddy the fighter pilot's prayer is Lord I pray for the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the balls of a combat helicopter pilot!" The commander of the helicopter squadron called in reply, pissing off the fighter pilots again, but nobody really cared, as fighter pilots were known for their fragile egos.

"Aye... but keep in mind, flying helicopters is like masturbation, you enjoy it while it's happening but you're kind of embarrassed when you're done!" Kieran shouted. The Helicopter pilots all stood up quickly, in some cases, knocking their chairs over. Rising to the implied challenge, the Sandhogs all leapt to their feet. Silence spread quickly through the bar as everybody turned to see what would happen next.

"Enough children!" Sims said as she walked between the two groups.

"Saved by your old woman? Infantry... dumb mama's boys!" The helicopter squadron commander said with a cocky grin.

"What did you call me?" Sims shouted as she wheeled on the helicopter squadron commander.

"I believe it was old woman ma'am." Kieran said, knowing how much that pissed her off.

"Is this true?" Sims asked, staring right into the eyes of the helicopter squadron's commander.

"It is Captain Sims." Brembo said with his most sincere voice, wanting to see how the diminutive captain would respond.

"I am not an old woman, you asshole!" Sims shouted as she drove her fist through the Helicopter Squadron commander's face. The startled pilot fell backwards off his stool and landed with a heavy thud against the floor. A helicopter pilot attempted to sucker punch Sims in the side, but Kieran intercepted the punch and picked the person that threw the punch and literally hurled him into the assembled mass of helicopter pilots. Several helicopter pilots dove after Kieran, but he caught one of them and threw the caught pilot into another one of the charging pilots. Their numbers halved, the two helicopter pilots attempted to retreat, but froze in place as MPs barged in through the bar door, quickly followed by the base commander.

"What the hell is going on here?" Lieutenant General Dunan Knute shouted from the doorway

"Simple recreation ma'am," Tinkler said, snapping to attention.

"A sporting match between two teams ma'am," Kieran replied, as he wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth.

"Ok... Someone please explain to me how..." General Knute started to say but was cut off by Kieran's pager.

"For the love of god..." Brembo said as his own pager began going off.

"We're not even the duty team!" Gaz moaned as his own pager began chirping

"What the hell?" Soap asked when he felt his vibrating in his pocket

"Come on, guys... chop the bull and let's roll." Sims commanded.

"Well, you heard the boss!" Kieran called over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

"Hold it!" Knute shouted as Sims and her Sandhogs walked out the door.

"We can't ma'am, we've gotta get moving! Brembo shouted as he sprinted off in the direction of his squadron's ready room so that he could put on his gear.

"Colonel's got a point Ma'am." Kieran pointed out.

"I'm coming with then." Knute shouted.

"What?" Sims asked.

"Go get ready; I'll meet you on the flight line!" Knute shouted.

"Christ... she's serious ain't she?" Breakers muttered as Knute made to follow them to their armory.

"Well... Whatever, it'll just make the night more interesting won't it?" Kieran muttered as they jogged to their armory to grab their combat gear.

The ride through the air to the drop zone was completely boring by Kieran and Brembo's standards. They could all feel the tension, but most of it was caused by having General Knute aboard rather than going in on a combat mission. Brembo signaled to them over the intercom that they were ten minutes out from the drop zone, and the tension was jacked up by a notch or two. At the two minutes signal, the crew chief slid over to the tail gate and hit the switch to lower it. While the crew chief was lowering the tail gate, the rest of the Sandhogs stood up and checked to make sure they had rounds chambered and safeties off.

"Go Go!" The crew chief shouted as Brembo brought their tilt rotor into a hover.

With practiced ease, the troops of the Sandhogs sprinted out from their tilt rotor's tailgate and set themselves up in a loose defensive perimeter. Once all of the soldiers were clear, the crew chief signaled to Brembo, and he maxed the throttles out to clear the drop zone. Without waiting for orders, Rapp activated his direction finder. The Direction finder's three antennas were mounted as part of his communications radio backpack, and had the ability to detect a Pilot's Personal Locator Beacon or PLB from ten miles away, depending on the conditions.

"Anything?" Sims asked.

"Nah... We're too far out from the pilot's ejection point."

"Right... McCorrason!"

"Roger that, moving out," McCorrason said, as he poked his head above the sand dune in front of him and brought his binoculars to his eyes.

"See anything?" Brezhnev asked as he slid to a stop behind McCorrason.

"Nah, don't see anything... Scratch that, I've got Zeek troopers 2000 meters out, Permission to engage?" Kieran reported as he brought his DSR-1 up to his shoulder.

"Hold fire Master Sergeant! They could be looking for us, don't fire until you're sure of a hit.

"General..." Kieran said, "They're miles inside my effective range..."

"More like 500 meters." Sims said with a laugh.

"Al... you're supposed to be helping me here." Kieran said.

"Al?" Knute asked.

"My first name is Alice," Sims said by way of explanation.

"You know each other by your first names?" Knute asked.

"We've been working together for about five years now, so yeah, we know each other's first names." Sims said as she brought up her own binoculars.

"Ma'am, they're at 1500 meters now... I can drop all three of them before the last one even comprehends what's happening."

"Do it." Sims said.

"Right."

At the order to fire, Kieran began regulating his breathing as he leveled his crosshairs on the first Zeon soldier's chest. Because they were past 1000 meters, he wasn't comfortable with taking a headshot, because the range was just a little too far for the weather conditions. After a couple of deep breaths, Kieran exhaled, held his breath and pulled the trigger. Without waiting to see the effect of his first shot, Kieran quickly repeated the process for the two remaining Zeon soldiers.

"Nicely done sarge, three up and three down," Brezhnev said.

"Works for me... Wait one... one of those bastards is still moving..." Kieran said angrily as he brought his rifle to his shoulder again.

"What are you doing?"

"Euthanize the bastard." Sims ordered just before Kieran pulled the trigger again.

"What do you mean Euthanize the bastard?" Knute asked.

"He was going to die one way or another, I felt compassionate and shot him again." Kieran said coldly as he scanned for more targets.

"Compassion is it? Odd way of showing it that's for sure." Knute said with a snort.

"Moving along from the unimportant to the important, I don't see anybody out there Cap'n; by your leave, we'll go and scout ahead."

"Get on with it." Sims said, shoving him over the sand dune that they had taken cover behind.

"Ass!" Mick called good-naturedly over the radio as he recovered his footing and began carefully scaling down the sand dune with Brezhnev, Soap and Gaz in tow. She tried to follow them down the dune, but the four of them were in the Special Air service, and could disappear in an open field if the circumstances were right. As they advanced over the dune, Kieran held his fist up, and they all came came to an immediate stop. Brezhnev looked around; trying to figure out exactly what it was that caused Kieran to call an emergency halt. After a couple of seconds, Brezhnev noticed Kieran waiving him over, so he dropped to his belly and combat crawled to his friend's side.

"What's up?" Gaz asked as he crawled up next to Brezhnev.

"See it?" Kieran asked

"The house there?" Brezhnev asked as he pulled his binoculars out from their pouch on his tactical vest.

"Yeah... Where's that muppet Rapp when we need him?" Soap groused

"Before we rolled the dunes, Sparky said that the bastard was too far away for his DF gear to work."

"I think he's a muppet. I'm willing to bet the first of the two turkeys is up in that three story house right there!"

"And I still want to know why you think the pilot is in that damn building..."

"Did you see that flash?"

"Yeah..."

"Hold on a second..." Kieran said as he brought his DSR-1 to his shoulder and activated his night vision scope, "Oh damn... He is in that damn building..."

"Shit and he's not exactly there by choice is he?" Brezhnev muttered.

"This ain't good… The four of us going to be enough?" Gaz asked

"Naw... Let's at least call up Breakers and Tinkler." Brezhnev replied

"Naw... if we call them up, Captain Sims will come along and if she comes along that damn General will too and then it'll become a fucking Barnum and Bailey down here."

"Fuck... like the old days then, sneak back up; steal a little C-4..."

"Learned my lesson from that adventure, brought some along this time." Kieran said as he patted his tactical pack.

"Sounds like fun, let's go kick a damn door in." Soap said with a laugh

"You got it." Brezhnev said as they carefully scaled over the top of the sand dune. Neither one really thought that it was sensible, what they were about to do, but he knew that it was the right thing to do.

While the four of them were advancing towards the house, they all too turns fixing suppressors to their weapons. Because Brezhnev was unable to fit a suppressor to his MG-4, he slung it across his back and pulled out his backup weapon, a deadly little Heckler and Koch MP-7 machine pistol, which was silenced.

Sims watched from the cliff, wondering exactly what her SAS team was up to. She found out a few seconds later when a loud bang, followed by a bright flash, an even louder bang and then the distinctive crash of a fragmentation grenade going off reached her ears.

"Stay here! Don't go anywhere..." Sims said as the distinctive snarl of Brezhnev's MG4 reached their ears.

"What the hell are they doing?" Knute shouted.

"What they do best, pissing me off." Sims said with a sigh.

"Shouldn't we go back them up?" Knute asked.

"If there's one thing I have learned from working with those four goofballs, it's that getting in the way of SAS trained operators is a bad idea. Before you ask why they aren't with the SAS anymore, I can't say because I don't know."

"I see..."

"Baseplate, this is Hawkeye do you copy?" McCorrason called over the radio as Gas and Soap swept the building to clean up any remaining hostiles.

"Roger that Hawkeye, Baseplate copies, what's your status?" Sims asked angrily

"Pilot number 1 recovered; tell that muppet Sparky to get on the damn radio and get hold of Centric Guard." Frost said

"Right... Rapp, get hold of Centric Guard and request medivac for one of the pilots."

"Roger," Rapp said as he switched on his satcom unit, "Centric Guard, Centric Guard this is Sandhog do you copy?"

"Go ahead Sandhog, Centric Guard copies." one of the communicators in the Centric Guard control room replied

"Sandhogs report recovery of first pilot and request medivac."

"Roger that, medivac inbound; ETA fifteen minutes, repeat Medivac ETA fifteen minutes."

"Roger that Centric Guard, Sandhogs signing off." Rapp said as he put his satcom receiver into standby mode

"So, how long until the medivac team gets here?" Sims asked

"Centric Guard reports ETA at fifteen."

"Which means more like half an hour" Kieran said over the radio.

"Yeah, that sounds about right to me." Sims said, "You need me to send Doc over?"

"Negative, Doc and you guys need to stay right the hell where you are. We'll be there in five." Kieran said

"Right... Rapp, satcom's beeping." Sims said

"I hear it," Rapp said, flipping the receiver back on again

"Sandhogs, Sandhogs, this is Centric Guard, do you copy?" A different communicator from Centric Guard said urgently.

"Centric Guard, this is Sandhogs; we copy five by five." Rapp replied

"Your medivac tilt rotor just got shot down. Nearest unit to your position is five hours out. Repeat nearest unit to your position is five hours out."

"What the hell happened to Super Six Four?"

"Sorry Sandhogs had to RTB with a mechanical failure." Brembo replied apologetically.

"Roger that... Centric Guard, stand by over."

"Roger that, Centric Guard standing by."

"Ma'am, Centric Guard reports our medivac chopper got shot down, and Super six four is RTB with a mechanical failure of some sort. Our backup is five hours out."

"Christ... Tell them to get their feet in it and haul some ass. I don't like the idea of being out here with a damn Prima Dona mobile suit pilot and a General for more than a couple of hours." Sims groused as Kieran, Brezhnev, Soap and Gaz scrambled over the dune with the pilot on a field stretcher between them

"Did I just hear what I thought I did?" Kieran asked pointedly

"Indeed you did..."

"For crying out loud... why didn't the buggers have a second damn bird on standby?" Kieran asked rhetorically.

"What's got you so worried?" Knute asked, "It's only five hours..."

"Ma'am, two things have us worried. You and the damn mobile suit pilot; he's wounded and you're a ball and chain around our ankles."

"Watch it mister!" Knute snapped.

"All due respect ma'am, he's correct in his assessment. We survive by remaining mobile. With you and a wounded pilot, we aren't mobile."

"Can't you call in for backup or something?"

"Centric Guard would have told us of available backup assets, and they would have detailed them to us after the medivac helo got shot down. We're on our own out here for five hours..." Sims replied

"And we didn't bring field shelters or anything..." Tinkler groused

"Not much we can do about that..." Breakers said

"Ok guys... here's the plan, or as best of one as I can make right now. Kieran, you and I will keep watch in the direction of the town with Gaz and Soap. Breakers I want you and Tinkler watching the road over there. Brezhnev I need you and Ferot standing by to back us up in a hurry. Doc, I need you to keep that damn pilot alive. The rest of you… Batou, take charge of the rest and form a tight defensive perimeter around the Doc. In addition, Batou, detail a couple guys to make dinner. Move out people!" Sims said

"This isn't so bad..." Kieran muttered to himself as her rolled over on his stomach and set his DSR-1's bipod up.

"Yeah... half on half off?" Sims asked as she lay down next to her with her spotting scope out

"Sounds good; you want first half?"

"I'll take first half, you eat."

"Sounds good." Kieran said as he ripped the top off a field rations pack.

"Hey Kieran... Check your scope."

"Right, where away?" Kieran asked as he set his rations pack down.

"Three o'clock... maybe three thirty... About a klick out maybe a klick and a half."

"Nice zone boss." Kieran muttered as he swiveled his rifle around to examine the area.

"Get me a better spotting scope, and I'll give you better fire zones."

"I'll talk to the supply sarge and see what I can knock out of him." Kieran said as he toggled the focus on his rifle

"Don't beat the guy senseless; we need to keep on his good side."

"I know...

"What exactly did you see?" Kieran asked as he surveyed the area.

"I just saw movement..."

"Well… I think somebody needs to have her eyes checked when we get back to base."

"Why?" Sims asked angrily

"Because that's a damn camel you clown." Kieran replied with a laugh

"Cap'n, I've sighted a convoy headed for the town!" Gaz called urgently over the radio

"Damn… we haven't even found the second pilot yet."

"No point fussing over it now Captain, Let us go check it out." Gaz asked

"I can't…"

"Come on Captain…"

"Fine, but don't get your asses killed!" Sims ordered.

With Gaz in the lead, the small detachment of soldiers moved at a fast, but sustainable pace as they advanced on the Zeon occupied town. Despite the long range, they had a general idea as to the pilot's location from his locator beacon. Because they were operating well forward of the line of battle, the downed mobile suit pilot's beacon would only connect to the Federation's GPS network long enough to get a rough location to prevent the Zeeks from being able to use their own direction finding gear to hunt for the downed pilot. Once the search teams were in the area of the downed pilot, they would activate their direction finder, which would send out a signal to activate the beacon's short-range mode.

"Are we going in hot?" Kieran asked

"There are far too many about for going in hot; everybody stay quiet for now." Soap said

With that in mind, Kieran reached into one of the pockets of his tactical vest and pulled out his SPR's silencer. Brezhnev dropped his MG4 to its sling and pulled his MP-7 from its holster on his right thigh. Both Gaz and Soap already had their silencers fixed to their Mk77s so they took the lead while Kieran and Brezhnev sorted their situation out. After Brezhnev got his SMG sorted out, he took point and Kieran took tail guard with Soap and Gaz in between them. As they advanced down the street, they all heard the familiar whine of a Zeon Cui's hybrid drive train in its 'quiet' electric mode. They all flattened against the wall of the building they were passing by and each one searched his sector, trying to locate the machine. Kieran caught sight of it on the town's main road, which was just one street over.

"You want me to take a look?" Kieran asked

"Be damn careful." Soap said

"Right..." Kieran said as he scanned up and down the street and then sprinted across. Once he was half way across the dirt street, he dropped into a slide and slid the rest of the way across. Frost paused, searched the area again, and then carefully advanced his way down the street, looking around to make sure that nobody could see his position. For an added layer of security, he switched off his IR tag even though the chance of the Zeon detecting it was slim to none. He poked his head around the corner and took quick stock of the enemy's forces and then pulled his head back around before they could see him. He waited a few minutes to make sure that the nobody had seen him before carefully crawling down the alley again back to where he could be seen. Once he was out of line of sight for the Zeon troops on the other side of the building, he flashed his targeting laser once to get Soap's attention. Soap flashed his own once, in acknowledgement. Frost scanned the area just to make sure that nobody had observed them and sprinted back over to them.

"So, what did ya see?"

"Big trouble that's what; four Cuis, a pair of Magella Attacks and a Samson carrier all manned up and ready to fight. The Cuis weren't carrying combat troops, or at least there weren't any that I saw. But they did have gomers in the turrets." Kieran said

"Christ, they're after the damn mobile suit,"

"Do we know where it went down?" Gaz asked

"Yeah, somewhere around here…" Soap said with a rueful snort of laughter.

"Chill out, I can find the mobile suit's locator with the DF equipment." Kieran said, activating it

"Works for me…" Brezhnev said

"Found the bugger," Kieran said, transmitting the location to his small detachment's HMDs. "They're pointed the wrong way, and they didn't have a mobile suit on board the carrier." Kieran said as he examined the map.

"How hard is it to turn a few Cuis and Magellas around eh?" Gaz asked

"What about the damn Samson?" Kieran asked

"That means they'll be coming here." Soap muttered as he looked at a map of the city.

"Damn, what are we going to do?" Brezhnev said.

"Ambush the bastards at the end of the block?" Gaz asked

"It narrows down pretty well there." Kieran said

"Indeed it does... biggest threat is the tanks... we've got C4 packs and a pair of AT mines, and two incendiaries a piece. What about you guys?"

"Just some C4 and four frags" Kieran said.

"C4 and a pair of incendiaries." Brezhnev replied

"We'll have to make due then."

"Right, lead off Brezhnev." Soap said, waving Brezhnev off.

They advanced down the street, carefully watching both in front of them and behind them to make sure that the Zeon did not notice them. Once they reached the spot they had planned their ambush for, Soap found a manhole cover and noticed that it was perfect for what he wanted to do. He pulled his roll of duct tape from his tactical belt and secured the mine to the bottom of the manhole cover. He also placed a pack of C4 on the wall of the manhole its self to create a cavity for the tank to fall into and to launch the manhole into the air so that the AT mine would explode just inches beneath the tanks hull. He attached manual detonator leads to each charge and tossed the spool of wire in the direction of the building he was going to take cover in. He carefully lowered the manhole cover back into its position to prevent the mine from falling off and becoming useless. To stop the tank where he wanted it to, Soap wrapped two loops of detcord around the base of a utility pole and then placed a small shape charge between the two strands of detcord. He inserted one end of the detcord into the shape charge's detonator and attached a spool of trigger wire to the detonator at the other end of the detcord. He tossed the second reel of trigger wire in the direction of his cover position. While Soap was preparing the first phase of the ambush on and under the ground, Kieran, Brezhnev and Gaz had climbed atop the buildings surrounding the area and crouched down on the rooftops. While Soap was rigging the primary ambush, Kieran, Gaz and Brezhnev attached remote detonators to some of their C4 bricks. When Soap stopped the convoy with his main charge they were going to pitch their C4 bricks at the convoy's tanks to try and disable or destroy them.

Sims was starting to worry about Kieran and his mates from the SAS, because they had been gone for a rather unreasonable amount of time without contacting her at all. The cold desert air allowed the sounds of the armored convoy starting up in the down below them to reach her ears but only just. It took her a few seconds to recognize the sounds for what they were, but when she did; her heart nearly came to a stop. She waived for her team to come over to her.

"You hear that?" She asked as the sound from the convoy picked up.

"Shit... they're probably still in the damn town too." Travis said

"What's going on?" Knute asked too loudly for everybody.

"Listen!" Sims commanded.

"Vehicles?" Knute asked.

"Yeah... Oh shit..." She muttered as the sharp crack of detcord being fired.

"Even more shit..." Tinkler said with a laugh as they heard the dual slam of Soap's trap for the first tank being detonated.

Kieran watched as the first tank was first disabled and then demolished by Soap's well-positioned trap. He glanced over the edge of the roof that he had taken cover on and caught sight of the top of the second Magella attack tank. He tossed the C4 brick like a Frisbee and watched it land in the open gunner's hatch on top of the Magella. He rolled to the other side of the roof and squeezed the detonator. The detonator had a five-second delay, which allowed him to use the repelling rope he had set up to slide down off the roof before the charge exploded. The gunner was unable to figure out what had fallen from the sky and landed in his tank, so he simply assumed it was a piece of shrapnel from the first tank's demise and ignored it. Just as Kieran's boots hit the ground the five-second timer hit zero and the C4 charge exploded. The charge Kieran had used was enough to destroy a bridge, and the gunner's position of the tank was wholly inadequate for stopping the explosion. While the tank didn't explode as if it would have had it been hit with a proper anti tank weapon, the fact that the gunner's position was demolished and the tank's weapon control system destroyed was more than enough for the situation. Taking their cue from the destruction of the second tank, Brezhnev and Gaz popped their incendiary grenades and hurled them into the open backs of the first two Cui transport vehicles. It was inhuman and cruel but it got the job done and that was life on the front lines for the SAS.

"Nice... that'll buy us some time." Kieran said as they regrouped at the prearranged rally point.

"Yeah, but how much?" Soap asked

"Probably not enough, but we'll have to make due won't we now?"

"I suppose.... While we're on the topic of making due, call Captain Sims and let her know we're ok." Gaz said

"Good idea, Sims'll come down here looking for us."

"Right," Kieran said, switching back to the Centric Guard operations frequency," Baseplate this is Hawkeye."

"What the hell have you been up to?" Sims replied

"Just having a little fun Captain; there was a Zeek armored convoy in town and we decided to tie them up. Do not, repeat do not enter the town at all, it is now way hot." Kieran said, hoping that she would understand the distinction between his version of way hot and her version of way hot.

"Roger that, holding position." Sims said, irritated by what they had done but glad that they were fine nonetheless.

With the recovery convoy taken care of, Kieran and his team moved off to the outer perimeter of the search area. They could hear the shouts and curses of the Zeon troops that had been ambushed behind them as they left the town behind them. In the pragmatic view of the SAS, the Federation Intelligence Command and even Centric Guard, the destruction of the highly sensitive ELINT gear aboard the mobile suit was higher on the chain of priorities than the securing of the pilot. Kieran wanted to achieve both goals, but he knew that securing the mobile suit would save more than just the pilot's life. They found the mobile suit within half a mile of where its last reported location was. Unsurprisingly, there were a few Zeon troops there, and a single Cui transport but they were combat troops, not engineers or intelligence specialists.

"How do you want to do this?" Soap asked as he surveyed the situation through his binoculars

"I've got eyes on the radio guy." Kieran said

"That's most important, next is the guy in the turret."

"I can get up behind him and take him out silently and capture the machine gun." Gaz said

"What about the driver?"

"Frag into the driver's compartment?" Brezhnev asked

"Works for me." Gaz said

With the plan decided, Kieran dropped into a kneeling stance and kept his SPR's reticule locked onto the radio operator. Brezhnev's grenade would be the signal to start the loud part of the attack, as it was the only thing they could not suppress. Brezhnev had the fragmentation grenade's safety pin out and when heard the double click over the radio from Gaz, signaling that his mission was completed he tossed it into the driver's compartment and rolled away from the hatch. The grenade's three-second fuse burned to its end before the driver could get out of his vehicle and reach around to grab the grenade. While muffled by the armor of the Cui, the grenade's explosion was loud enough to grab everyone's attention. However, the Zeon infantry had not been expecting it and most of them stared dumbly at the Cui. Taking advantage of their frozen state, Kieran fired his shot and took the radio operator out with a surgically placed headshot. Gaz watched as the radio operator fell and opened fire with the purloined machine guns. The twin 12.7mm heavy machine guns chewed through the remaining infantry before any one of them had a chance to react.

"OK guys, let's set the demo charges and get the hell out of here." Soap said as he scanned towards the town with his binoculars

"Agreed," Brezhnev said as they warily approached the smoldering mobile suit.

"I'm setting the charges, get the hell clear." Soap said as he climbed up onto the mobile suit and plugged a small transceiver into the mobile suit's wired communications unit that had miraculously survived the mobile suit being shot down.

"Right, let's get the hell out of here." Kieran said, signaling for Brezhnev to take the lead.

Rapp was dozing off next to his satcom receiver when its message alert tone sounded in his ears. He glared balefully at the satcom receiver before he switched it out of its passive receive only mode and into active mode.

"Sandhog, Sandhog do you copy?" The on duty coms officer called.

"Sandhogs copy, go ahead Centric." Rapp replied, stifling a yawn

"Sandhogs, Centric Guard here. Just wanted to let you know that your extraction table has been moved up. We managed to get another recovery helo in the air for you. Recovery helo will be on station in one hour."

"Say again Centric Guard?" Rapp asked

"Repeat, Sandhogs, Recovery helo will be on station in one hour."

"Captain!" Rapp called urgently

"What is it?" She replied

"We've got a ride boss!"

"That's all well and good, but we've got guys in the town. Get Kieran or Soap on the line!" Sims ordered as she

" Hawkeye this is Baseplate do you copy?"

"Base plate, this is Bear; go ahead." Brezhnev replied

"Bear, Baseplate; Centric a recovery helo inbound. It'll be on station in one hour, repeat recovery bird will be on station in six zero minutes."

"Stand by Base plate; Kieran, did you hear that?"

"Yeah... meet up with them back at the base?" Kieran said, glancing over at Soap.

"Sounds good to me." Soap said after he checked his ammunition load.

"Base plate, bear; we will meet up with you back at Centric Guard over."

"Negative Bear, negative. Recover the pilot and get back up here over."

"Fine..." Kieran said, rolling his eyes with a frustrated sigh.

Brezhnev jerked his hand up in the emergency stop gesture. Soap looked at him and cocked his head to the right, silently asking what it was. He pointed at his eyes, and then forward along the street. Soap cocked his head to the right again, wanting to know what Brezhnev had seen. Brezhnev shrugged his shoulders, the signal obvious and signaled for Kieran to come forward. Kieran flashed the ok symbol and carefully advanced to Brezhnev's position. Brezhnev pointed down the street and made a squared off upside down u shape and held up his thumb, pointer and middle fingers. Kieran translated this in his mind to three people in a doorway in the direction Brezhnev pointed.

With that information, he brought his DSR-1 to his shoulder and scanned ahead of them, taking full advantage of his rifle's powerful night vision optics. He immediately spotted the doorway in question and confirmed that Brezhnev had in fact seen hostile troops in the doorway. However, what his scope revealed to him was more than just troops were up ahead. Because they were on the outskirts of the town, what Brezhnev had spotted was actually a Zeon security checkpoint with a patrol forming up outside of the building the troops had taken over to keep themselves sheltered from the elements. Kieran turned around to face the rest of the patrol and report his findings with hand signals. He pointed at his eyes with his pointer and middle fingers, signaling that he had sighted enemy forces ahead. He repeated Brezhnev's upside down, squared off U shape, and then patted his riffle. This translated into guard post, but the point got across well enough. Soap replied with the door sign and then held his left hand palm up and waved his index and middle fingers over his hand, silently asking Kieran if he thought the pilot was in there. Kieran drew his thumb across his neck meaning that if he was in there he was more than likely dead.

With that conversation completed, Soap signaled for Kieran to take the lead, as his DSR-1's night vision scope was far more powerful than the ones that they wore. Frost called a halt so that he could check their position on his HMD's map mode against the range and bearing to the downed pilot reported by the DF module, he had 'borrowed' from Rapp. As he was about to move out again, the harsh clatter of a Zeon assault rifle being fired reached their ears. Fearing that the rounds were being fired at them, they all spilt up from one another, to make sure that a single burst could not wound or kill them all. After a few minutes of silent watching and waiting, they were able to determine that the shots were not being fired in their direction. The shots had however, worried Soap and Kieran enough that they decided to break into their two man fire teams and advance down opposite sides of the streets, with Kieran and Brezhnev in the lead.

Even though their new formation, and the different movement rules it required, slowed them considerably they still managed to find the final downed pilot in short order. What they found was unfortunately common for CSAR units dating from the Vietnam War. When they sighted the pilot, about ten Zeon infantry surrounded the downed pilot and a Gunship Heli orbited loudly overhead. Kieran waved Gaz forward and handed him Brezhnev's spotting scope so that he could observe the pilot's injuries and make a decision if he was 'recoverable' or not. To Gaz's trained eye it was obvious after a couple of seconds that the pilot was dead, and had probably been severely injured when he had ejected from his mobile suit and had passed out while trying to get away from its mobile suit's wreckage. Gaz shook his head and shared the frustrating news with the team. Brezhnev tapped his radio, asking silently if he was wanted to radio in. The four of them shared a quick glance and mutually decided that that was a bad idea given their close proximity to the Zeon infantry.

Sims was growing impatient with Kieran and his friends from the SAS. It had been several hours since they had heard from them and she was beginning to get concerned for their safety.

"Captain, I've got Tinkerbells!" Tinkler called out from her watch position

"Tinkerbells, what the hell are those?" Knute asked

"That's what we call the IR tags," Sims explained as she crawled over to Tinkler's position

"It's just the four of them, no pilot." Tinkler reported

"I noticed."

"Pilot was dead, couldn't bring the body with us." Kieran said as he slid down the other side of the dune.

"Why?"

"Because he was surrounded by about 10 Zeek infantry and had a Gunship Heli orbiting overhead.

"Have you blown the mobile suit?"

"That should be happening right about... now." Kieran said as a large fireball bloomed over the buildings of the town."

"Alright, then its mission completed for now anyhow. Sparky, radio in to Centric Guard, tell them to bring in that damn helicopter!" Sims ordered

"Yes ma'am!" Rapp said as he activated his satellite radio and connected to the Centric Guard frequencies, "Centric Guard, Centric Guard this is Sandhogs, request exfil."

"Roger that sandhogs, Exfil helicopter inbound!" Radio operator at Centric Guard replied.

"Good stuff, police up people, our ride is inbound!" Sims called over the radio.

"Sparky get on the horn to that bird and let them know it's gonna be a hot pickup! Look alive people hostile infantry at three!" Kieran called

"How far out are they?" Sims asked urgently as the sound of the helicopter approaching reached their ears.

"Helicopter' pilot reports they're 5 miles out and have sighted our IR beacon!"

"Ok people, let's get some lead downrange!" Kieran shouted as he brought his DSR to his shoulder.

As the sound of the helicopter approaching got louder, so did the sounds of battle. Kieran had been holding his fire until an officer became present. The second he caught sight of one, he quickly checked the range and pulled the trigger. He was satisfied to see the officer drop with a gaping hole in the side of his head. He was less pleased to see a pair of heavy machine gunners drop to their knees and aim their weapons in his direction. Before they could do anything about him though, Kieran heard the familiar bloop of a grenade launcher firing. The high explosive 40mm round landed between the two Zeon heavy gunners, showering both with fragments.

All of the troops on the ground cringed as the massive transport helicopter came to a hover above them. The gunners aboard the helicopter opened fire with their Gatling guns. As the helicopter settled closer to the ground, the gunners held their fire while Doc Travis and Lieutenant Jan sprinted up the ramp with the stretcher between them. With the wounded pilot secured aboard, Kieran waived for the Sandhog's regular troops to board the chopper while he and Brezhnev provided covering fire. Once they were all aboard, Brezhnev and Kieran picked up their weapons and sprinted for the tailgate.

"We're aboard, haul ass!" Kieran shouted as the crew chief brought the massive rear hatch up.

"Roger that, door gunners stand ready!" The pilot shouted as he twisted his cyclic controller to get more power to the rotors. The helicopter lifted up off of the dusty desert floor and banked sharply to head back towards Centric Guard HQ.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

* * *

In the Earth Federation and Duchy of Zeon's seemingly never-ending quest to beat one another into submission, many different types of weapons were developed. Soon, mobile suits became the norm for combat on the ground, and in the skies. However, mobile suits get damaged, pilots are forced to eject and are left wandering uselessly around like babes in the wood. Realizing this, the Earth Federation and the Duchy of Zeon maintained their Corps of Infantry. Of these, the federation's most infamous unit was the 127th Dragoons, 6th company, the Sandhogs. Equipped only with what they can carry on their backs, the Sand Hogs are tasked with one of the most thankless and dangerous jobs ever, going in and rescuing downed mobile suit pilots.

"War… the ultimate art awaiting the ultimate practitioner"

* * *

"Found your ass!" Kieran muttered to himself as he pulled the trigger on his sniper rifle. He watched with great satisfaction as a great red splotch appeared on Sims' chest.

"You bastard Kieran!" Sims howled as she dropped to the ground, writing in pain.

"Pay up!" Kieran replied over the radio.

"Screw off, you cheated!" Sims moaned as she stood back up.

"The hell if I did you're just..." Kieran was cut off as Rapp, Ferot, Tinkler and Breakers all opened fire on him.

"Got your ass this time!" Rapp shouted.

_'Is that what you think?'_ Kieran thought as he leveled his crosshairs on Rapp's forehead and pulled the trigger. Before any of the three surviving Sandhogs could get out of the way, Kieran fired three more shots. Each one of his shots found its mark and dropped its target with various shrieks of pain.

"Ok 6th company, your time is up! Everybody head to the briefing room for your after action review!" the range master called over Centric Guard's massive indoor training area's loudspeaker system.

"Damn you Kieran!" Sims shouted as they piled into the briefing room.

"Don't damn the Master Sergeant, Captain, Damn yourself. You put yourself in this mess by refusing to take my advice. Remember, the SAS are leaps and bounds above your levels. Your bruises and welts are your own damn fault and I hope that you have remembered damn well the lessons you learned during this training session. Captain Sims, answer me this, why did you choose to advance down the main street?" The Range master, Colonel Ferguson asked

"I advanced down the main street because I wanted more room to spread my people out so that a single burst couldn't take us all out at once. As I recall it that's standard infa..." Ferguson overrode her statement with his powerful voice.

"You aren't standard infantry anymore Captain, you're the elite of Centric Guard. Master Sergeant McCorrason, how would you have approached the building?" Ferguson asked.

"I would have either waited for dark, as the Zeon's night vision and thermal viewers aren't all they're cracked up to be. Given that that was not an option in this scenario, I would have probed the town up the main street and set off a couple of nuisance bombs to get them firing at me. With a little recon by fire, I would have flanked them or pressed home the assault depending on how they preformed their counterassault. Given that their objective was to hold the city's telephone exchange and power transformer complex, I might have set myself up in an adjacent building and taken a few out with precision shots to get them looking my way while the remainder of the team looped around to one side or the other to take them from an unexpected angle. "Kieran replied.

"And you're sure I would have fallen for that?" Sims asked.

"You did all three times." Gaz replied with a laugh.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kieran asked.

"You were within 500 meters of our position. That's child's play; the only time Kieran fired was when we needed you all down fast with aimed shots." Soap said with a smirk.

"You're full of shit, there's no way in hell that..." Breakers began to object.

"Cool it Sergeant, and what they're saying is true. You guys got your asses handed to you by two people firing precise accurate shots." Ferguson said.

"I'll tell you what made it so easy. After Gaz or Soap selected their mark, you people froze. You cannot, just cannot do that. It does not matter if the person can be saved or not. When you are dealing with a sniper mobility and cover are your friends. When you all froze like that you wee static for long enough that any competent sniper would have killed you all. I have been to enough funerals in my career and I do not want to go to anymore. Your combat computers have sniper guard equipment installed in them and can give you a good idea as to where a sniper is firing from. What you should have done, given that information, was scatter and seek cover because a moving target is much harder to hit at range than a static one. That's why none of us wear rank insignia, nobody salutes in the field. You also should not say yes sir or yes ma'am when we are out in the field. Remember; try to look unimportant because the enemy may be low on ammunition." Kieran said

"Listen people, it's not that hard to survive on the battlefield. All you have to do is keep your brains about you and trust your instincts and train..." Ferguson's dismissal speech was cut off when everyone's alert pagers began chirping at once.

"Sorry Colonel... Let's go people, this is a hot one!" Sims shouted, after she translated the various tones in her mind.

"Get the hell going and good luck!" Ferguson shouted.

_'What in the hell is she doing here?"_ Kieran grumbled to himself as he caught sight of General Knute standing by the door to their ready room.

"Before you start bitching, I'm here because there's been a change in the alert." She said as she grabbed Kieran.

"What? What change in the alert? Why wasn't it broadcast to us?"

"Because I didn't' have time to change the alert and these orders are coming from way on high. Gear up, and meet me in the briefing room. You four, "Knute said, signaling the SAS members of the team, "Bring your parachutes,"

"Which ones?" Kieran asked.

"Assault parachutes." Knute replied as she jumped back in her jeep and sped off towards Centric Guard's command center.

"Did she just say assault parachutes?" Gaz said with a grin

"We get to have some fun!" Brezhnev said with a grin.

"Let's go guys, kit up!" Kieran ordered as he pulled his assault parachute's harness out of his gear locker

"Should we go full assault?" Soap asked as he shrugged into his own assault parachute harness

"Fuck it all and why not?" Kieran said as he began strapping on all of the necessary extras that went with their full assault equipment.

"Good grief guys, is all of that necessary?" Sims asked as she watched them strap on repelling ropes and equipment, door breaching charges, extra carabineers, twice their normal ammunition load out and heavier armor.

"Yeah, we don't get to play too often, so we're going to take full advantage of that fact." Kieran said as he checked his equipment.

"Harness check!" Brezhnev shouted as he jumped onto Kieran's back and grabbed hold of his harness.

"It's on right!" Kieran hollered as he shoved Brezhnev off.

"I know that now," Brezhnev said with a cocky smirk.

"Enough horsing around guys!"Sims shouted.

"We aren't horsing around," Kieran said as he checked over his team's gear.

"Don't you guys pride yourselves on stealth? How can you move quietly with all of that gear on?" Sims asked

"Did you hear anything other than footsteps?" Kieran said as he walked up to her.

"No..." She said, resting her head against his chest, "Be careful Kieran,"

"No worries, I'll be fine." Kieran said, kissing the top of her head.

"Let's get going guys," Sims said, still feeling a little uneasy.

"Relax Al, we'll be fine." Kieran said with a grin as they strode out of the door.

"Took you two long enough, were you getting it on or something?" Gaz asked as he jumped into the jeep's cargo bed.

"Stow it." Kieran said angrily as he jumped in next to Gaz.

"Hold the hell on boys, I'm driving!" Sims said with a grin as she dropped into the driver's seat.

"You know what we should do one of these days?" Soap said with a laugh as Sims floored the accelerator.

"What?"

"We so need to revive the old parasailing drills."

"What are those?" Rapp asked

"Essentially, you take one of these, tie a rappelling line around the pintle mount bar up there, and then once you get up to speed, you deploy your parachute and go for a ride."

"What the hell is that supposed to help you practice?" Sims said as she slewed the vehicle into an open parking space in front of the Centric Guard briefing center.

"Nothing really, but we used to claim that it would help us practice precision landings." Kieran said with a smile as he remembered some of their more adventurous stunts during SAS training.

"You guys are friggin crazy." Sims said with a sigh as they all entered the briefing center.

"Nah, you guys are just boring," Soap replied as they piled into the briefing room.

"Ok General, why are wearing parachute gear?" Kieran asked as he leaned against the back wall.

"Let me tell you guys what's going on first off. The four of you are being airdropped into the battle at Kazran; the general there has been wounded. According to my orders I have to dispatch my best people to evacuate him immediately, so that's where you guys come in." Knute said as she signaled for someone to project a map of the city on the screen to her left.

"Why the parachute insertion?" Kieran asked

"Because the last time we tried to get a chopper in there to evac the General, it got shot down."

"What's to prevent them from shooting my people out of the sky?" Sims asked.

"They're being assault dropped into the city's park. After the insertion, you guys are to link up with the General's command center here." Knute said, indicating the building in question with her laser pointer.

"Simple enough; but where do we come in?" Sims asked.

"You guys are being inserted with an armored resupply convoy..." General Knute paused at the uneasy looks on the entire company's faces, "What's wrong?"

"Armored convoy did you say?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" She asked.

"Just about everything... Ma'am, riding in an armored vehicle in a damn urban combat zone is essentially suicide for us." Sims replied.

"I see your point, but how are you planning on evacuating the General? In addition, they are involved in a major battle and the forward edge of battle is catching rapidly up to the General's command post. The four of you will have to move out first, and when Super 6-4 gets back here we'll work out alternate insertion plans for you." Knute said

"Ma'am... may I make a suggestion?" Kieran said.

"Go ahead," Knute said.

"Ma'am, after my guys and I are in the city, you could easily have Super 6-4 set down outside the city and have them advance in on foot after we've secured the General."

"That's fine," Knute, "But if you screw this up, I'll burn your ass."

Kieran fixed her with a frosty glare, "General... all due respect, you don't have the... ability to burn me or my team. In the proper scheme of things, a General is replaceable; people like us, not so much."

_'That insufferable insolent cocky assed bastard_' Knute raged silently as the SAS team filed out silently behind their commander. Sims gave Knute a semi respectful salute before she followed Kieran and his team out. The pair walked quietly to the helipad quietly, neither one particularly feeling like engaging the other in conversation.

The silence lasted through Super 6-4's take off sequence, and continued for the first half hour of the flight. The tension their nonverbal argument was causing could have been cut with a knife, and it showed on everybody's face. After another ten or so minutes passed, Sims stretched and laid her head on Kieran's thigh. Without even thinking about it, Kieran's hand came to a rest on her head, and he ran his fingers through her hair.

"This sucks..." Kieran said with a sigh as he glanced down at his watch.

"What does?" Sims replied, grabbing his wrist so that she could see his watch.

"This operation," Kieran said with a disgusted sigh.

"Why, seems even more straightforward than our last one. We weren't even forced to go behind enemy lines." Sims said.

"Just trust me, there's more going on here than comes to the surface." Kieran said with a sigh as the amber five-minute light above the rear hatch lit up.

"Kieran... last time you said that..." Sims said.

"Yeah, it ended up being quite the firefight; let's see that it doesn't happen again." Kieran said with a laugh as he gently lifted Sims head off his lap.

"Aww... I was comfy..." Sims said with a playful sigh as Kieran stood up and walked to the tail ramp. When the green two-minute light lit up, Sergeant Nance dropped the tail ramp and attached his tether to the overhead anchor while he pulled the tail ramp Gatling gun out of its stowed position and into its ready to deploy position.

"Thirty seconds!" Sergeant Nance shouted.

"Static up!" Kieran shouted, attaching his static line to the deployment rail.

"Fifteen Seconds; deploying ramp!" Sergeant Nance shouted.

"Last call, grow a pair or unhook!" Kieran shouted.

"Ten... Five... Four...Three...Two...One... GO GO GO!" Nance shouted.

Even before Nance had finished shouting the first go command, Kieran surged forwards, quickly followed by his squad mates. As they jumped out over the lip of the tail ramp, their static lines snapped taunt and ripped their parachutes out of their deployment bags. All of the SAS members were highly experienced paratroopers, and while they did not enjoy the fact that their short drop height precluded using their reserve parachutes; they preferred the shortened time in the air to the exposure to enemy fire that a higher drop would have opened them up to. Their drop lasted for bare seconds, and once they were on the ground, they quickly ditched their parachutes and sprinted away from the landing zone. Behind them, their parachute's self-destruct systems activated, turning the chutes into an unrecognizable black powder that the wind quickly blew away.

"Well, we're in the shit now," Brezhnev commented as the sound of a heavy machine gun ripping off long bursts from down the street reached their ears.

"Aren't we ever?" Kieran asked as he flattened himself out against a building.

"So, do we report in to local command?" Soap asked as he slid to a halt next to Kieran and covered his sector.

"Fuck'em, I say sort these dumb buggers out once we get to their command center." Gaz said

"Sounds good to me," Brezhnev said.

"I'd prefer if we weren't here at all." Soap said as he caught sight of somebody a distance off and brought his rifle to his shoulder.

"We've been static too long, the decision is made." Gaz said as he turned his rifle to the same direction as Soap's.

"So we have, Kieran said as he carefully poked his head around the corner ahead of them to find the heavy machine gunner.

"I think we've got problems guys, there's a squad of Feddies pinned down ahead of us and a patrol of Zeeks coming up our ass!" Kieran said

"For fuck's sake... couldn't we have picked a better LZ?" Brezhnev asked as he moved to back up Kieran.

"Naw... There's something fucked about this mission and I do not like it... They just don't deploy the SAS, or Centric Guard for that matter, to sort out one bloody wounded General." Kieran said as he activated his DSR-1's scope camera mode and sent the data via their combat computer's data link mode so that Brezhnev could see the machine gun position.

"You want me to run across the way and draw fire?" Brezhnev asked.

"No, I want you to pop out around the corner of this dumpster and put a long burst into his position. I will be across the street there in that little alcove and I'll nail his ass. Soap, Gaz, you two fuckers better cover my ass! We join this fight in five rocks!"

For the remaining three members of the SAS detachment, that meant that the action would start in five seconds. While to most experienced infantrymen, five seconds was only just enough time to get prepared for the members of the SAS, five seconds was far more than enough for them to get into position and prepare for their maneuver. At the one count, Kieran sprinted out across the street, drawing fire from the heavy machine gun. The 14mm shells ripped up the pavement behind him. Even though Kieran figured that going up against a heavy machine gun firing rounds that were almost twice the diameter of his own was a plaintively suicidal maneuver, he sprung out from around the dumpster and fired a long burst into the gunner's nest. Suddenly confronted with two targets, the gunner made a snap decision to engage the one that was shooting at him, while ignoring the greater threat; a simple mistake that the gunner would never get the chance to correct. Brezhnev dove back around the corner as the 14mm shell tore through the thin sheet metal as if it were paper. While the gunner's mind was still on the active threat, Kieran unleashed one of his powerful .338 Lapua rounds. The report of the round was louder than any of the other infantry weapons being fielded by either side, save for their respective anti tank and anti mobile suit weapons. The Machine gunner's helmet was only designed to protect him from fragments and debris and the .338 round bored right through both sides of the Gunner's head, taking him down and silencing his heavy machine gun.

"The front door is open," Kieran called over their tactical radios as he heard a few rifle rounds ricochet around his feet, "Somebody check my uniform, I feel a breeze around my ass!" Kieran quipped as the volume of fire directed at him increased

"Well then why don't you get your dumb ass a new uniform?" Soap muttered as he began firing.

"Roger that; if you've got problems with breezes around your ass you shouldn't leave it hanging out in the breeze in the first damn place!" Gaz replied as he opened fire with his rifle.

"They're down, the back door is clear!" Brezhnev said as he pivoted to back up the other two members.

"Right, let's get moving towards the regular's HQ," Kieran said, signaling for them to move out in a pair of two man fireteams.

"Why bother, we'll just get sent back out." Gaz said.

"Because I feel like getting some answers, and we won't get straight answers over the god damn radio." Kieran said as he pulled his bayonet off his web gear and fixed it to the end of his battle rifle.

Listening in to her SAS detachment's lighthearted remarks and sarcastic quips told Captain Sims that they had all survived the parachute insertion and their initial stages of combat without getting wounded. While that fact in and of its self didn't surprise her at all, the acidic comments being aimed at the general that they were supposed to be rescuing were. Normally, she would have passed their comments off as the four of them just trying to be a pain in the ass but Kieran's earlier comment had gotten her thinking down some unpleasant lines. In truth, she should not have been surprised by their comments at all because her SAS detachment had a habit of being overly suspicious when it came to missions outside their regular or Centric Guard channels. Realizing that the mission was so far outside of the norm for them got her to thinking, and she did not like where her thoughts were taking her at all.

"Baseplate, you on the net up there?" Kieran called.

"Baseplate here, go ahead Hawkeye,"

"Hey, listen we're going to top a building. See if you can get Brembo to long rope or hot drop you guys in on our position." Kieran said

"What the hell is wrong?" Sims asked.

"I don't like the feelings I'm getting hand having some trustworthy extras on the ground would be nice." Kieran said as he glanced over at the rest of his team for conformation

"Erm... Stand by Hawkeye." Sims replied as she undid her harness and climbed up to the cockpit.

"Hey Cap, what's up?" Brembo asked.

"Listen... Kieran wants more rifles on the ground next to him. He says that he's going to top a building and wants to know if you'll consider either long-roping or hot dropping us in." Sims said, leaning over Brembo's shoulder and speaking next to his ear to make damn sure she was heard.

"Shit..." Brembo muttered as he glanced over at his navigation display, "We'll do it... tell that bastard to top a good low building."

"Right, thanks Brembo!" Sims said with a girlish smile as she scrambled back to her seat," Baseplate to Hawkeye,"

"Hawkeye, Go!" Kieran called.

"Brembo says top a short building and he'll do it," Sims reported.

"Right," Kieran said, pointing to a building so that his team could see it.

"It's nice and low, I like it." Brezhnev said.

"Let's do it," Soap said.

"I'm not going to object." Gaz said as he loaded a fresh magazine into his assault rifle.

"Right on then," Kieran said, "Ok Cap'n, we'll top the building and get back to you,"

With that decided, the entire SAS team shut off their radios and sprinted for the front door of the building that Kieran had pointed out. As they approached the building, Kieran went off to the left side of the door and pulled a door breaching charge out of his backpack. Because he and Brezhnev had the least maneuverable weapons, they would be the last ones in the building, so Brezhnev slid into position behind Kieran as he set the breaching charge into position. While Kieran was setting the breaching charge, Soap slid into position on the right side of the door, pulled a fiber optic door camera out of his backpack, and checked under the door to make sure that there were not any frendlies on the other side. With the necessary fratricide precautions taken, he pulled a pair of concussion grenades off his web gear. Once everybody was in position, Kieran pulled the safety pin out of the breaching charge, and Soap pulled the pins out of the concussion grenades. Kieran glanced up at Soap to make sure that he was ready. Soap nodded his head and held the grenades up to signal to Kieran that he was ready. With that conformation, Kieran flipped the cover off the door breaching charge's detonator and thumbed the firing switch. Dropping the remote, Kieran flattened himself out against the wall next to the door to limit his exposure to the explosive effect of the breaching charge.

Designed to blow the armored doors off of Zeon facilities, the breaching charge consisted of six shaped charges placed along the perimeter of the door to demolish any locking mechanisms and hinges and a main charge in the center of the door to make sure that the door was out of the way either by blowing it into the room or destroying it. In this particular case, the door was reduced to high velocity fragments that would have killed or maimed anyone in the room even before Soap's concussion grenades entered the rooms to finish the job. Having announced their presence and intentions in an obvious manner, they proceeded to storm search the building to make sure that it was clear of hostiles. Because they were so close to friendly lines they had not expected to, nor did they, find anyone in the building.

"LZ is marked with a beacon!"

"Roger that, moving in now!" Brembo replied as he checked its location on his navigation display.

With practiced ease, Brembo plotted a course to the building that would leave Zeon anti-aircraft defenses little, if any, time to acquire and open fire on him. The course had him running so low in some places that he was actually beneath the skyline as he weaved his way through the apparently suicidal course to the drop zone.

"Hold the hell on!" Brezhnev shouted over the intercom as he shifted the tilt rotor's engine nacelles from horizontal to vertical and brought the large aircraft to a halt right above the landing zone.

"GO! GO!" Sergeant Nance shouted, having already dropped the tailgate for Sims and her team. Without needing further encouragement, the remaining seven members of the Sandhogs sprinted out of the tilt-rotor and dashed through the open doorway into he roof to minimize their exposure to hostile fire. When the last member of the Sandhogs was clear, Sergeant Nance signaled to Colonel Brembo and slid his Gatling gun back into position in the middle of the tail ramp as Brembo quickly built up airspeed so that he could maneuver and get clear of the Zeon forces in the city and their anti-air weapons.

"Hey... what's the story?" Sims asked as everybody spread out to defensive positions.

"Here's the tactical map," Kieran replied as he transferred their current location and a street level map of the city to Sims' combat computer," We're here, and we need to get here to recover that damn General. As I mentioned over the radio, I got a bad feeling and decided that I wanted more guns that I could trust around."

"I can understand that," Sims said as a series of large shockwaves buffeted the building that they were in, "What in the hell was that?"

"That sounded like Zeek fighter-bombers dropping 2000 pounders on somebody's ass," Kieran said as the fireballs and plumes of smoke rose up above the skyline.

"We've been static for too long, we need to get moving!" Gaz called as he caught sight of hostiles.

"Roger that; Kieran, you guys have point! Marcus, Breaker, after the SAS boys get moving you two lead us off!" Sims shouted.

"You got it!" Breaker shouted.

"We're moving!" Kieran called as his team lined up on the door.

As they sprinted out, Kieran spun to the left of the doorway and engaged the advancing Zeon troops with his EBR. His first shot went wide and tore a chunk out of a column above the head of the patrol's point man. Grumbling, Kieran clicked the range setting on his scope so that it was a hair lower and pulled the trigger again. His next shot did not miss. Shocked by the sudden loss of their point man, the Zeon squad started to scatter and dive for cover, while Kieran ripped off another series of rapid, aimed shots. His primary objective was not to kill the Zeeks, but to drive them under cover so that his team could slip away and link up with the wounded General. Kieran stole a quick glance over his shoulder to see that all of his team had spun around and taken up firing positions. To avoid friendly fire, Kieran slid himself into a slightly different position and pitched a frag grenade at a low wall that he had seen a pair of Zeon infantry jump behind.

"Stupid piece of shit..." Kieran muttered as much to his Chagrin, the grenade had a faulty fuse and exploded above the barrier rather than behind it, "Everybody watch your frags, I just pitched a dud."

"Roger that, we'll be careful," Sims replied as she checked her own grenades to make sure they were securely fastened to her web gear, "Don't worry about these buggers, get moving!" Sims ordered as she signaled for Ferot to provide them with cover fire.

"Roger that, get us some cover fire," Kieran called as he broke cover and ran across the road.

"Cover fire outbound!" Ferot shouted as he stuck the muzzle of his MG4 out of a window and began firing short bursts at the Zeon infantry.

Captain Sims watched her HMD, waiting for Kieran and his SAS detachment to get about half a klick (Kilometer) away from her before they started moving. While she was doing that, she was also watching her fire zone. She was about to roll over and shout for her when a door across a side street from the building that they were in burst open. Operating completely on instinct, she leveled her cross hairs on the center of the door and was shocked to see a gaggle of harried looking civilians burst out and begin to scatter. She held fire even as the helmet of a Zeon soldier came into her view, lest she miss and inadvertently kill a civilian. She shouted for backup as a Zeon soldier entered her field of view. After a quick check to make sure that she would not be accidentally dropping a civilian, she unleashed a well aimed three round burst that caught the soldier in the chest and dropped him instantly.

"Check your targets Sandhogs we've got fucking civvies!" Sims called over the radio as she dispatched another Zeon soldier.

"Are you fucking serious?" Soap snapped in reply.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" Jan shouted.

"I'm serious guys; I just had a bunch of them try and flush civvies as human shields!" Sims shouted as she ducked out of her window when a Zeon machine gunner caught sight of her and fired a long burst at her.

"Somebody doesn't like you," Tinkler said with a laugh as she slid into the window next to Sims and fired a long burst at the machine gunner.

"Yeah, and I'm willing to bet he hasn't got much reason to like you either." Sims said as the machine gunner sagged to the street, "Batou, take Travis, Marco and Ferot out and move five hundred meters down the street from us. I'll catch up with Rapp, Breakers and Tinkler after you've made it that far."

"Roger that, can we count on you for cover fire?"

"Always Jan, always," Sims said as she oriented her fireteam along the building's front to provide cover fire for Lieutenant Jan and his fireteam.

"Thanks Cap'n; Let's go!" Jan called to his detachment.

"Check six Hawkeye, frendlies coming out!" Sims called over the radio.

"Six checked we've got ya; you want us to keep up with the 500 meter intervals?"

"Yeah, keep 500m separation." Sims ordered. As Jan and his fireteam broke from the building, a hail of bullets chased after them. Without missing a beat, Sims and her fireteam returned fire so that Jan and his unit could keep moving.

"Captain, what in the hell do we do about these god forsaken civvies?" Jan shouted as he shoved a man back into the building he was coming out of.

"If the fuckers get in the way shoot them!" Kieran shouted as Brezhnev fired over his head.

"Don't you fucking think about it! We're going to level 2 rules of engagement." Sims ordered as she led her fireteam out of the building

"I had a feeling today was going to suck!" Brezhnev muttered to himself as he dropped to a knee so that he could cover Kieran as he sprinted across an intersection.

"You can say that again..." Gaz muttered as he sighted a group of civilians while he was sprinting across the street.

Sims understood the frustration her troops, especially the SAS trained ones were feeling with her orders to go to level 2 ROE, but she had to in order to prevent unnecessary civilian casualties. With the Level 2 ROE, they were unable to fire unless they were fired upon, and they had to make sure that there were no civilians in the line of fire. She was certain that Kieran would ignore her and the SAS fireteam, because they simply did not care about Centric Guard's ROEs especially in brutal urban combat. If they saw Zeon infantry they were going to open fire, and given their gunnery skills, they were going to kill more Zeon troops than civilians did. She was also certain that avoiding civilian casualties all together was an entirely impossible objective, because they had an uncanny skill for getting in the way at just the wrong time.

"INCOMING," Kieran bellowed as the distinct whistle of a Zeon 60mm mortar shell reached his ears.

"Jesus Christ... that's not a damn 60!" Soap shouted as the shell smacked into a building above Lieutenant Jan and his fireteam, "It's a saboted 120mm shell. I'm willing to bet that they've got one of those damn smart mortars tracking on their radios."

"Fuck me..." Gaz muttered as a storm of mortar shells rained in on Sims and Jan's positions.

"I'd rather not if you please," Brezhnev said with a snort.

"We need to go check on them," Gaz said.

"No need to say that twice," Kieran said as he moved to provide cover fire while Gaz sprinted out across the intersection to Lieutenant Jan's position. As Gaz approached Jan's position, Brezhnev took off next to provide serious firepower while Gaz could take care of any wounded. As Brezhnev slid to a halt, Soap sprinted out from their position, but continued past Gaz and Brezhnev to secure Sims' position. When Soap was half way to Sims' position, Kieran took off paralleling Soap.

"They're all ok, just shook the hell up," Gaz said as he pulled himself to his feet and began to move out towards Sims' position.

"Good; keep your head screwed on right Lieutenant; you're holding the point for now!" Kieran ordered, using his drill sergeant's voice.

"Roger that Sarge, we've got the point," Jan replied as his fireteam split up to take up better positions.

"You guys ok back here/?" Gaz asked as he slid to a halt behind a column.

"I'm hit..." Sims moaned, clutching her side.

"Ok Cap'n, let's get a look at it," Gaz said as he pried her blood soaked hands away from her side, "Everybody else OK?"

"I'm fine," Tinkler replied after checking herself for wounds.

"I'm good," Breakers replied.

"Same here," Rapp replied.

"Ok then; Rapp, help me get her behind some cover." Gaz ordered.

"Stand by Gaz, We'll clear the building." Kieran replied maintaining his cool, but only just.

"Roger that," Gaz said, covering Sims physically as Kieran kicked the door in.

"Clear!" Soap called from the second floor.

"Clear!" Brezhnev called from the second floor, opposite to Soap's position.

"All Clear!" Kieran called from the first floor. With that, Rapp and Gaz carefully carried Sims in and set her down next to a thick wall. With practiced ease, Gaz removed Sims' web gear and body armor. Once he had them out of the way, he pulled his knife off of his belt and carefully cut away Sims' jacket from around her wound.

"Oww... watch what you're poking at you Neanderthal!" Sims hissed as Gaz tugged at the piece of shrapnel embedded in her side.

"Hush Cap'n," Gaz said firmly as he checked the wound.

"How bad?" Brezhnev asked.

"She'll be fine; she took a fragment through the belt. Looks like the handle of her knife took the majority of the hit. Kieran, give her a sip would ya?"

"Right," Kieran said, pulling his whiskey flask off his belt and handing it to Gaz.

"Here, take a sip o this. It'll take the edge off. On three, I am going to pull this damn fragment out. I'm not going to lie, It's going to hurt like a bitch, but you cannot scream." Gaz said as he pulled forceps from his bag and dragged Kieran over, "Squeeze his arm, It'll help I promise. But whatever you do, don't break it."

"I'll try," Sims said weekly as she grasped Kieran's arm rather desperately.

"On three then... one..." Gaz pulled the fragment at one rather than at the promised three because he knew that expecting pain was usually worse than experiencing it. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sims' knuckles when white as she tightened her grip on Kieran's forearm. Brezhnev balanced at the wave of blood that followed the fragment's extraction, but did not say anything as Gaz sprayed anticoagulant and disinfectant into the wound and then proceeded to bandage it up.

"You son of a bitch..." Sims moaned, "I thought you said three!"

"You'll live Cap'n, and that's the important part. You'll probably need stitches when we get back to base but we don't have time for that sort of stuff now." Gaz said as he finished off her bandage.

"Thanks..." Sims said as Kieran helped her back into her combat gear.

"It's my job," Gaz replied coolly as he policed up his mess.

"Ok, let's reevaluate our situation here..." Sims muttered as she adjusted her gear.

"Right... you do that Cap'n." Gaz said as he pulled Kieran aside.

"Yeah, what's up Gaz," Kieran asked in a low whisper.

"When we get back to base we're getting these guys SAS armor. No more of this Centric Guard crap. If she had real body armor, she'd have a wicked welt, not a wound that'll need at least 15 stitches and leave her with a wicked scar." Gaz said angrily.

"I know... blame it on me if you want. I am top sarge and I shoulda noticed that deficiency. I wouldn't worry about that scar too much, the only people that are going to see it don't give a damn," Kieran concluded with a snort.

"That last bit goes without saying. The armor though... You'd think given Centric Guard's mission that that would be a non issue."

"Yeah; I'll have strong words with that bitch when we get back. I will also get hold of the depot and get some real equipment down here. We'll have to run familiarization courses but I think that that's the least of our concerns." Kieran said as Sims walked over.

"Welcome to the club," Gaz said with a smile.

"What club?" Sims asked as she reached for Kieran's flask.

"No more of that, not in the middle of a mission. You'll get more when we get home." Kieran said, gently pulling her hand off the flask.

"What club?" Sims asked insistently

"The club of them what's been wounded," Gaz said with a sarcastic smile.

"Great, It's nice to see that I'm in such refined company." Sims said, mirroring Gaz's sarcastic tone.

"Ok, now that we've got your leak patched up, let's think about getting us the hell out of here and sorting out this damn general. Sitting still like this bugs the hell out of me, and it makes a follow up attack all the more likely. We're only a few klicks from the damn General's command post so we should be able to make it there in about 90 minutes if we move at the pace we were before." Kieran said.

"I know that; how close do you guys think we are to the forward edge of battle?" Sims asked.

"Less than a kilometer," Gaz said.

"We are on the FEBA" Brezhnev commented,

"I figure we are a klick or so on the right side of it. Most of the guys we've engaged were outfitted for skirmishing and we've only come up against one heavy machinegun emplacement." Kieran said.

"When you say the right side you mean..."

"The Zeon side of the FEBA ma'am," Soap said.

"So there's no real risk of friendly fire?"

"Nope, unless you start shooting at us."

"I've been tempted to do that sometimes... I've still got the welts from this morning." Sims said as she glared at Kieran.

"We'll worry about that later on Cap'n." Kieran said

"Indeed we will," Sims said, returning to her normal commander's voice," All right then... here is how we're going to do this. Kieran, you and your SAS fireteam are going to take point. Because I have an SAS radio, we can still communicate between one another. I will move the rest of the sandhogs as one unit with our radios off to avoid that kind of bullshit again. We'll try and maintain half a klick of separation between us for the time being, but as we approach the command center we'll have to bunch up into one unit." Sims said as she sent Kieran and his fireteam the course she wanted them to use.

"Sounds easy enough." Kieran said as he examined the route.

"Then let's do it."

It did not take long for them to run into a firefight. It should not have been a surprise to Sims when she realized that Kieran and his fireteam had opened fire first, but in the end she realized that it didn't matter too much. She cringed as a pair of RPGs exploded next to the position where Kieran had taken cover. Without needing to be told, Brezhnev and Ferot opened fire with their automatic weapons to drive the RPG equipped troops back under cover while Kieran dashed out across the street to get a firing angle on them. Without thinking, Sims broke from cover, sprinted down the sidewalk, and skidded to a halt three cars behind the one Kieran had taken cover behind. Both of them could hear the heavy metallic thumps of bullets impacting the cars.

"What the hell are you doing up here?" Kieran asked as he brought his EBR to his shoulder and put three rounds downrange.

"Giving you cover fire," Sims replied as she ripped off a withering string of three round bursts at a group of Zeon infantry that were advancing on them.

"Thanks Al..." Kieran said with a smirk as Brezhnev and Gaz, quickly followed by Soap advanced on their position.

"You two are fucking nuts!" Gaz shouted as he found a position behind a corner and dropped to a knee.

"Too bloody right," Soap said as he took up a position in a doorway.

"You want us to catch up?" Jan called over the radio.

"You clear those RPGs?" Sims asked over the increased volume of fire.

"Yeah, I've got those RPGs down... Frag out!" Kieran shouted as he pitched a fragmentation grenade at the advancing Zeon troops.

"Right; Jan advance to my position carefully." Sims ordered as Kieran dragged her out from behind the car and shoved her next to Soap.

"So.... is this what it's like for you four?" Sims asked as Kieran unleashed a deadly volley of rounds from his rifle.

"Yeah, about..." Kieran muttered

"Hostile Armor, AT to the front!" Brezhnev called from his side of the street.

"Cover fire!" Tinkler called as she caught sight of the advancing APC and searched for a quick vantage point. It did not take long for Tinkler to decide that her best cover position was behind a string of cars parked along the street. Even though her AT-4 was unguided, Tinkler knew well how to use it to its full effect. Using some tricks taught to her by Soap, she carefully sighted in on the APC's engine compartment. With a minimum of compassion, she depressed the firing switch unleashing the 84mm anti tank rocket. The large back blast from her AT-4 firing highlighted her position to the driver and gunner aboard the APC. The driver slammed on the reverser and the gunner turned his turret to engage her but it was all for naught as she had planned for them to do exactly that. When she had aimed at the APC, she set her point of aim a little aft of where she wanted the rocket to impact, knowing that the driver would back out of the line of fire to maximize the time his gunner had to return fire. The 84mm rocket punched through the thin radiator slats just above the track and entered the engine compartment before detonating against the engine. Just after she had fired the missile Jan and Doc Travis hauled her out from behind the car before anybody else could get a bead on her.

"Good girl, Nice shooting!" Soap shouted as the APC began to burn

"Thanks..." Tinkler replied as Ferot tossed her a second rocket module for her AT-4.

"Ok guys, let's keep it moving here. Lead off Hawkeye!" Sims ordered

"We're moving," Kieran replied as he advanced carefully past the burning APC.

Kieran plotted his advance carefully, well aware that he had one wounded person along with him. Even though Captain Sims could still hold her own, the wound slowed her down somewhat. He was pleasantly surprised with the lack of contact as they finished their advance to the position that General Knute had given them for the link up point with the wounded general that they were supposed to recover. What he found on the other side of the command center's fortifications was less than pleasing to him though.

"Who the fuck are you?" A burly sergeant assigned to guard detail asked

"Out of my way," Kieran said,

"Who the fuck are you?" The guard asked again, leveling his rifle at Kieran.

"Once more... Out of my way!" Kieran shouted as he grabbed the rifle from the sergeant.

Kieran was about to bash the guard over the head with his own rifle when Sims shouted, "Stand Down Hawkeye!"

"What ever..." Kieran said with a dismissive waive of his hand as he shoved the stunned guard out of the way and tossed him his rifle,

"What's crawled up his ass?" Sims asked Jan quietly as the four SAS members entered the command centered

"They're about to be called mercs, and they're gonna make one hell of a fuss about your wound." Jan said as he pointed to the dried blood that covered the side of her uniform.

"That'll piss him of" Sims muttered, "I don't need him pissed right now either..."

"I think that's the understatement of the month," Jan said as he opened the door for his commander.

As she entered the command center, Sims could see the expressions of disdain plastered across the faces of the Federation's command staff. Because of different uniform regulations, none of the SAS members had nametags or ranks on them. Nor did they wear Federation or unit ID badges, which only compounded the situation. One of the Federation regulars made the potentially lethal mistake of calling them mercenaries. Kieran fixed the obnoxious officer with a lethal stare, and clenched his fist.

"Stand down Hawkeye! Getting into a pissing contest with regulars isn't worth our energy." Sims said, grabbing the back of Kieran's combat harness. If she had the strength, she would have hauled Kieran away from the confrontation, but the difference in physical size prevented that.

"Who are you?" A man with Colonel's eagles on his collar points asked

"Captain Alice Sims, Centric Guard." Sims replied, forgoing the necessary salute

"I see... Where is the rest of your company?" The Colonel asked impudently

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before you start questioning a lady?" Brezhnev asked from the doorway, keeping his tone intentionally disrespectful.

"Don't you dare get uppity you damn merc!"

"Damn merc is it?" Brezhnev asked,

"Relax Sergeant, these guys wouldn't know the Special Air Service if ya punched them in the face," Sims said, "Listen and listen good Colonel as what I'm about to say is for your own damn good..."

"Settle down Cap'n," Kieran said before Sims could light into the Colonel.

"Don't you..."

"Cap'n, Just trust me keep your trap shut and let us do the talking," Brezhnev said

"Listen asshole! You are dealing with the fucking Special Air Service not some goddamn mercenary command. If you want our help, start fucking talking and start talking fast. If you don't, we need to get back to our base as there are other operations that need our attentions more than yours." Kieran said, enjoying watching the Colonel blanch.

"Ehm... well then.... Let's get down to business." A major said, taking over for his speechless boss.

"Good idea," Kieran said

"Ok... here's the hole we're in. We've taken about 35 percent casualties and we're getting dangerously close to our combat loss grouping." The Major said, referring to the ratio of wounded and dead to combat ready troops that would render them combat ineffective, "We have a major resupply operation and CASVAC scheduled for tomorrow morning but it can't get off without your help. Guessing by your appearances you've already met our biggest problem."

"Those smart mortars?" Soap asked

"Yeah, those bastards." The Major said, "They fly ELINT reconnaissance drones above the FEBA and when they find enough radio transmissions to warrant a salvo they try and murder us with 'em. Fortunately, we managed to figure that out at the expense of nearly an entire company. We've run decoy ops and laid out traps so that we could attempt to trace the fire back to them. We have been able to narrow down the area to a box that's a kilometer on each side and that's about the best we can do. We know exactly where their drone control station is, but when we tried to shell the damn thing, we caught enough counter-battery fire to drown a horse."

"Sounds like a cast iron one... So you want us to remove the mortars and the drone controllers?"

"Yes please,"

"I can do that I suppose." Sims said with a smile

"Ok... how exactly are we planning on pulling this stunt off?" Kieran asked

"You think you can get into the city's works department computers and pull out the plans for the subway network?" Sims asked

"Oh no... You aren't planning on doing a Milan again are you?" Kieran asked as a wicked smile

"Oh but I am," Sims replied

"You'll excuse me if I don't know what a Milan is?" The major asked

"Let us worry about that. All you need to worry yourselves with is that we'll take care of those mortars." Sims said, "You got the damn maps 'ere sparky?"

"I wish you would realize that this isn't as easy as you make it out to be." Rapp said as he began working on the city's wireless network.

"How long do we have?" Kieran asked

"The airlift is set for 0630 tomorrow morning."

"So that leaves us with eighteen hours then?" Sims replied after a glance at her watch.

"Yes captain,"

"Ok boss, I'm into the network. You want the subway and utility plans?"

"You got it," Sims replied as she studied their tactical situation.

"Bingo, they're ours!" Rapp said with a triumphant smirk as he transmitted them to Sims' tactical computer."

"Looks like there are two subway networks here. A deep one, and one that is closer to the surface. "

"Yeah, there are two networks here," The major replied, "I used to work into the public works department before I got called up from the reserves. The lower network is the newer, active network. The upper network we use for equipment and supplies storage. We have also ran fire hydrant and city electrical loads through the upper subway network. It keeps our critical stuff deep enough that it'll survive war."

"Until we found out about it." Kieran said with a snort as he studied the map and overlaid the utilities map. "So... you three ready?"

"What do you mean you three?" Sims asked angrily

"Just what I bloody well said."

"The four of you aren't goin out on your own.."

"What about the wounded and base play?"

"I'll leave Jan and his fireateam here."

"You are staying." Kieran said firmly, "That I will not let you debate..."  
"Debate? Debate?" Sims said hotly, "Need I remind you who is the officer here?"

"No, but do I need to remind you who is wounded here?"

"The both of us are wounded," Sims said as she pointed to the blood dripping from a scratch along his cheek.

"Hmm... But you..."

"Cap'n.... Don't debate this with me. Stay here,"

"No." Sims said firmly

"The two of you are married aren't you?" The major asked

"They may as well be," Gaz said

"They fight like a married couple don't they?" Tinkler asked

"Don't they ever?" Brezhnev said with a smile

"Give it a rest you lot!" Sims snapped, "Our personal life is none of your business."

"You make it our business when you fight like that." Soap pointed out"

"Ok... let us worry about our lives." Kieran said

"On to the mission if you please," The Major ordered

"Yes sir; Kieran, you and I are going to take our fireteams to knock out those damn mortars. Lieutenant Jan, you and your fireteam are going to stay here and keep our Baseplate open."

"Yes ma'am, we'll keep it open for ya." Jan replied as he began surveying the building for defensive positions.

"Major?" Kieran asked

"Yes Sergeant?"

"These buildings," Kieran said as he circled the buildings in question with his finger, "What exactly are they?"

"That's the police and fire academy's repelling and high-rise rescue training facility. The tower its self is sixteen stories tall and it sits atop a four-story complex. If you count the antenna farm and other equipment mounted up on the roof, it's 23 stories tall. The repelling equipment is mounted on the fourth, fifth, tenth and fifteenth stories. You can see for miles from some of the service platforms on the chiller towers."

"I see..." Kieran said softly as he processed the information.

Sensing that Kieran might want more information, the Major continued, "You can get to it on the surface streets or via the old subway network; although it would be more a combination of the two as some sections of the network have collapsed due to the fighting."

"How stable are these tunnel networks?" Sims asked

"The tunnels themselves are fairly stable given their age and the recent fighting. I would avoid any tunnel within two kilometers of any government complex, especially within the North, East and Central sectors of the city. Also, stay well away from any of the underground road tunnels as they have all but collapsed."

"Ok... Keep the information coming Major, in this stage the more we have the better off you'll be come tomorrow." Kieran commanded

"Right... If I were you, I'd also stay out of the central district as there are probably mountans of UXO from both sides piled up throughout. We fought damn hard for the Central district, and the only reason we lost it in my opinion is a bad batch of fuses in our mortar and artillery shells. During the civilian evacuation, we shut down all of the water, and electrical connections to the civilian infrastructure. For our own safety, we shut down the gas and steam networks to the entire city, although we can reactivate part of the system because we still retain control of the majority of the control infrastructure relating to both systems. The electrical and water connections to the government facilities are still active but their viability is questionable at best due to battle damage. Also, if you feel the need to advance through the Central district, stay clear of the newer sections. We have found that the newer buildings with their curtain wall construction are very efficient death traps. Especially ones with the pure glass facades, the damn Zeeks would fire rockets up into the walls and knock sections off and they'd come crashing down on to us."

"Lovely... I think we'll avoid that section then." Sims said, not wanting to give them any hints as to their line of advance, "Hawkeye... "

"Yeah..." Kieran grunted,

Sims glared at him before replying, "Lead off,"

"Roger that," Kieran said, "I'd suggest fixing your bayonets; useful things in a city they are." With that, Kieran slipped the door open and headed out into the city.

Kieran hated fighting battles in the twilight hours; in reality, he hated fighting battles when there was any natural light at all as it negated some of the SAS's technical and training superiorities. In his opinion, twilight was fine for romantics but rubbish for military operations; because it was not dark enough to allow him to use his thermal or night vision viewers, nor was it light enough to give him his usual daytime visual acuity. He understood that the same limitations were imposed on the Zeon, and that his training and equipment allowed to compensate for the effects, but he hated it none the less.

The route that Captain Sims had planned for them was not terribly difficult or long, but it did put them through some spaces where they would be at a disadvantage. If it were up to Kieran and his SAS fireteam, they would have waited until dark and avoided all of the subterranean tunnels until the final approach to their targets; however, unchararisticaly Sims ignored his advice and they were going to use the tunnels. He understood the impetus for use the tunnels, namely that they would shield them from artillery and Zeon aerial reconnaissance assets, but he didn't like being confined in a space that only had two entrances and exits. However, he knuckled down and accepted his orders and decided that he would find a way to mitigate the risks involved.

"Captain... you know this is a dumb way of doing things?" Kieran asked over the radio as his fireteam scouted the area around the first subway tunnel.

"I've gotta side with McCorrason in this one Captain..." Lieutenant Jan said

"It was a temporary plan to get us out of that damn HQ building. That Major was entirely helpful, but his colonel was a complete moron. Now that we're clear from that mess, let's consolidate at the Ventura hotel and sort out a proper plan." Sims said, marking the hotel on their HMD's navigation modes.

"Roger that," Kieran said as he surveyed the rout

"Contact! Hostile infantry 1500 yards at 1 o'clock!" Brezhnev whispered urgently. Without needing to be told, Kieran and the SAS fireteam switched immediately to hand signal communication as they took cover behind piles of rubble. After a quick check of his map, Kieran realized that they were within three kilometers of a major hospital and that the Zeeks had more than likely occupied the hospital to take advantage of its facilities. Kieran carefully set himself up so that he could examine the infantry with his rifle's high-powered scope. After a quick scan, he locked onto the Zeon patrol's radio operator and kept his rifle locked onto him so that he could silence any cries for help. Keeping his rifle locked onto the Zeek radio operator, he glanced to his sides quickly and noticed that Soap and Gaz had attached their silencers and Brezhnev had swapped his MG-4 for his MP-7. Thinking quickly, Kieran signaled Gaz to keep an eye on the radio operator while he fixed the silencer to his own rifle. They well understood that the 'silencers' wouldn't silence their weapons, but the lessened report combined with the confusion of well aimed shots would probably carry the day for them.

It took her a couple seconds to figure out what they were up to, but once Sims realized what Kieran and his fireteam were doing, she quickly signaled for her own team to take cover and be as quiet as they could. It also did not take her but a couple of seconds to pick up on the hospital's importance in their current tactical situation. She knew that any sort of engagement in this stage of their operation, especially one so close to a hardened Zeon position, would go badly for them and only hurt them in the long run. With a few muttered curses at her stupidity, Sims found herself some secure cover so that she could work out an alternate rally point. She glanced around the corner of the building she and Breakers had taken cover behind and was surprised when she could not see Kieran and his fireteam at all. She knew that they were very good at concealing themselves, but she did not think that the SAS were so good as to make themselves invisible. She snapped her HMD's monocle back down into position and activated its IFF mode so that she could track their positions but they weren't showing up, which meant that they had turned off their IFF transmitters.

_'What in the hell are they up to?'_ Sims wondered just before a sickening choking, grueling sound reached her ears. She glanced over at Breakers to make sure that it was not him being bayoneted.

"They're certifiable, you know that?" Breakers asked in a hushed voice

"I hope those bastards know what the hell they're doing..." Sims muttered as she watched Brezhnev drag two bloodied bodies in Zeon uniforms into a building, quickly followed by Gaz, Soap and Kieran.

"Should we ask what they're up to?" Jan asked as he slid into position next to Sims.

"No... In the five years that I have worked with those four I have found that it's best not to ask questions when they're up to nefarious doings like that. If they wanted me to know what they were up to, they'd tell me." Sims said with a resigned sigh as Kieran signaled for them to advance up to their position. Sims checked her rifle and scanned the area for possible threats before she took off towards them. Rather than advance straight to their position, as she would have before she met Kieran, she carefully advanced from cover position to cover position until she reached his side.

"Are you fucking insane?" She whispered harshly

"Nope; else I wouldn't be here would I?" He asked with a smile as he wiped the blood off his bayonet on one of the Zeon soldier's uniforms

"You... You're incorrigible you know that?" Sims asked angrily

"We do what we need to survive. War is not a game my dear. It has no officials, no points are awarded, and there is no clear cut way to determine the winner; it has only one hard and fast rule, 'kill or be killed.' You can sit there with your officer's education and spout off all of the conventions and treaties and such relating to war but when it gets down to it, us line animals live only by that rule. In a firefight there is no such thing as a cheap shot; hell, you even agreed to a repeat of our adventures in Milan." Kieran said

"You don't need to tell me that..."

"I do need to tell you that Alice, I truly do. You have not seen the true brutality of war. We have, and we work damn hard to keep you insulated from it..."

"I'm not some frail little girl!"Sims snapped angrily, " I've been out with you on missions for the last five years and I think that I've seen more than my fair share of war's brutality!"

"Captain, Mick... This isn't the place or the time for this kind of discussion." Soap said, trying to focus the two of them back on the far more important matters at hand.

"He's right..." Sims said softly

"I know it... One of these days, I will tell you some of the horror stories from the war. It's true that you, and the rest of Centric Guard's rescue teams see the brutality of war on a daily basis. However these pale in comparison to some of the stuff we did long ago and far away, you'll just have to trust me on that." Kieran said

"We'll settle the argument at that then," Sims said, realizing that Kieran had a rather valid point as she activated her HMD again.

"So... are you still up for the hotel?" Gaz asked as he surveyed the map on his tactical display

"How far is it from the hospital?" Soap asked

"Hundred meters, looks like," Brezhnev replied

"Close enough for me," Kieran said

"What in the hell? We are trying to avoid contact here!" Sims asked as Brezhnev signaled to Breakers and Jan to bring in the rest of the company.

"And we are... If the hotel is a hundred meters from the hotel, that puts it nearly three and a half clicks from here. Where do you think they will look for this patrol? Around here, or around their bloody base where nothing suspicious has happened?" Kieran asked

Bending to the logic of the situation, she waived for Kieran and his SAS team to lead off again. She kept her objections to how close they were getting to a major Zeon position to herself, because she trusted Kieran's judgment and his superior instincts when it came to combat. As they were advancing, she noticed an odd collection of equipment distributed amongst the members of the SAS fireteam. Slung across Kieran's back, was a rather large piece of equipment that looked like the receiver of a rifle, with an attached high-powered scope. Slung across Brezhnev's back was what could only be a very large muzzle break, and the barrel it attached to. Strapped to the side of Gaz's medical kit were a bi-pod and some other components. Soap obviously carried the massive magazines for the rifle in question strapped to the sides of his demolitions kit. She did not want to ask them what it was, lest she be overheard by a Zeon recognizance patrol. However, she resolved herself to bring it up at their next opportunity. Something was still striking her as off with the mission though as they climbed up the stairs of the building, and their proximity to a major Zeon strong point within the city was not helping her much. She cringed as the scream of jet engines began to grow louder. She scanned the sky briefly to try to locate the aircraft, but she couldn't see it which just added another grey hair.

"You guys hear that?" Sims asked over the radio

"Yeah... we're almost in trouble..." Kieran replied, feeling very naked with no cover or concealment from the aircraft

"I don't have any anti air missiles!" Tinkler called

"Jees... way to make me feel better Tinkerbell," Jan muttered

"Hey now, Just reportin' facts here. No need to jump down my throat." Tinkler replied

"Can it guys; we don't need to get DF'ed!" Kieran hissed as he pushed open the door to the building that they were using for a rally point.

"How we takin this place down?" Brezhnev asked

"Nice and quiet like," Kieran said as he twisted the suppressor onto the barrel of his EBR.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

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**Author's Note: **As I've noted before, I don't own Gundam, although I wish I did.

As with all of my fics, this fic is rated M for a reason, so consider this your first and only warning.

I do believe that that's enough of the CYA bull and on to the story.

* * *

"So... what the hell do we do now?" Kieran asked as they examined the mountain of rubble in the lobby of the building that they had wanted to take cover in.

"Shit... looks stable enough for our purposes, let's just stay out of sight and we'll work something out." Sims said as she examined the building for fighting positions.

"Fridays..." Brezhnev spat

"Suck don't they?" Soap said

"Quit bitching guys, tomorrow is Saturday, and then we're off the clock for a week." Sims hissed, not in the mood to deal with their BSing so late at night.

"So, what's the plan Cap'n?" Jan asked as he surveyed the building around them, "We can't stay in this hell hole forever,"

"Yeah no shit," Sims said as she pulled her helmet off, "Kieran, how secure are we?"

"We're secure enough," Kieran replied after glancing over his shoulder

_'I wonder whose definition of enough he's working at' _Sims thought as she examined a tactical map.

"Cold contact!" Gaz whispered urgently

"Shit... "Sims muttered,

"Relax; they're not even looking in our direction." Kieran whispered into her ear as he scrambled by to go have a look at the Zeon infantry.

"Cap'n, I don't mean to be disrespectful or nothin'," Soap whispered, "But we need a plan and we need it now. This isn't a time to be pussy-footing about ma'am, if you can't come up with a good one, I'm sure we could."

_'Oh yes you did you ass,'_ Sims thought as she finished weighing her options.

"He's got a point ma'am, we've gotta start moving quickly."

"I thought you said this would be a good laying up point for the evening," Sims said

"I thought it would be, but it isn't. This building isn't exactly a shining example of structural stability and we need to get the fuck moving quickly. There could also easily be UXO in here too and who knows when that'll blow."

"Ok..." Sims said as she mentally put the finishing touches on her plan.

"Out with it Cap'n, we don't have all day here." Kieran urged as a chunk of rubble shifted ominously above them.

"Alright..." Sims said transferring the movement waypoints to Kieran and Jan's HMD's. "Ok... our objective with this operation is to drop these Zeek mortars so that that airlift can get off. We've gotta time the assault or takedown such that the Zeeks don't know what's hit'em and they don't have the ability to strike the airlift. So... Our first stage is going to be a modified Milan maneuver. The area the Zeeks have located their mortars on is above a major gallery..."

"We don't know that for sure..." Kieran pointed out,

"I know that you moron." Sims snapped, overriding him, "Hence the modified Milan stunt. Nearly the entire search area sits on top of a pair of pre-made camouflets. If we drop them, we sink 90% of the search area into the ground and leave the rest of it unusable. The objective is to leave them scared shitless so that they won't be able to react to the airlift at all. It's the best outcome we can hope for given our numbers and equipment. We can't go force on force but we can sure as hell even the playing field. Sure, a lot of Zeeks are going to die gruesome deaths and I'd prefer not to send'em off that way but we do what needs doing."

Kieran was momentarily taken aback by the audacity of Sims' plan, "Sounds like fun,"

"I knew you'd approve." Sims said as she saw the grin growing across Kieran's face.

"Hey Cap'n... I don't mean to interject unnecessarily," Doc. Travis said, "But what about proportionality..."

"We are being proportional. If the Zeeks open fire on that airlift, think how many wounded they'll kill."

"Ok... I'm just saying they may come down on you for it."

"Fuck'em, they won't have any evidence it was us." Kieran said

"Alright..." Evans said, not entirely convinced.

"Relax doc, we've done this before." Brezhnev said

"We'd better get moving guys, we don't have much time to pull this off and we're only getting one shot at it." Sims said, "We'll move out in fire teams as per SOP."

"What sort of distance do you want to keep between us?" Jan asked as his fireteam grouped around him.

"We'll maintain Five hundred klicks between Kieran and me, and 250 between me and you." Sims said

"Roger that." Kieran said as he signaled for his team to fix their suppressors and move out. Kieran carefully stuck his head out of the entryway to scan for Zeon patrols before signaling for Brezhnev, Gaz and Soap to follow him out.

"You know... if this goes wrong, we're going to get stuck with FISH," Gaz muttered as he stuck his head around a corner to check for Zeon forces.

"Fighting In Someone's House... you'd think we'd be able to find a way around it wouldn't you?" Soap said with a sigh.

"You know... I've never been a fan of fishing and days like this only reinforce that fact." Brezhnev said as he glanced over his shoulder to watch Sims and her fireteam advance from the building they had been taking cover in

"Shh!" Kieran whispered urgently, calling for an emergency stop. They all dove for the nearest shadow as a patrol of Zeon heavy infantry appeared in the intersection in front of them. Kieran knew that they hadn't been spotted, but he was certain that Sims and her fireteam had been spotted as soon as the one with the long range radio on his back grabbed desperately for his mike. Kieran took a calculated risk as he shouldered his rifle and loosed a round into the Zeon trooper's neck. Without pausing to see if he was dead or not, Kieran picked another target and fired. In that same instant, Soap and Gaz opened fire with their own weapons. Brezhnev held his fire, knowing that the sound of his MG-4 would carry for blocks and then they'd be dealing with half of the Zeeks in the city. Kieran dashed forwards to the corner and checked quickly for any other visible Zeeks while the remainder of the SAS element dragged the dead Zeon troops into the buildings on either side of the street. Kieran didn't like doing grisly things like that, but it was a military necessity. Sims ignored the macabre scene in front of her, having long since gotten used to Kieran and his SAS comrades oddities. She filed it away and decided that she'd complain to him about it later on even though she knew that it would be completely pointless because he'd just pawn it off as military necessity. She wasn't exactly sure what had prompted the furious attack on the Zeon patrol until she caught the angry expression on his face as she approached his position.

"What's wrong with you?" Sims asked

"Nothing," Kieran grunted as he looked around for the entrance to the tunnel network.

"Alright," Sims said with a sigh

"Where's the damn entrance Cap'n?" Gaz asked

"According to the map it's around here somewhere." Sims replied

"Right..." Kieran muttered, "I have a feeling we're going to be here for a while,"

"I know it," Sims said, as she scanned for defensive positions.

"We're out in the open here and it isn't pretty," Kieran said as he looked around for defensive positions

"I know it..."

"How much you wanna bet it's in the damn subway station?" Gaz asked

"Shit..." Sims muttered as she caught sight of the subway entrance on the next block.

"How on earth are we going to figure out where it is in that maze?"

"Easy.... we look for big doors. The old subway network is supposed to be used for storage and utilities and such right?" Jan asked as he looked around.

"Yeah, so?"

"All we have to do is look for heavy duty, double doors then."

"How you figure?" Breakers asked

"Makes sense doesn't it?"

"Yeah it does, heavy duty double doors are going to be rather common inside a subway station aren't they?"

"Yeah, but the locks on the doors will give'em away. They'll be heavy duty locks, and the doors themselves will look more like blast doors." Jan replied

"I'm willing to bet that it'll be on which ever side of the station sits under this block." Ferot said as he scanned his sector for targets.

"Makes sense to me," Sims said

"It's going to be narrow as all hell in there," Kieran said

"Loud too," Tinkler said

"Good grief... when we get back to the base, remind me to get on those bastards over at supply. There is no way on hell we are going out so under equipped again." Kieran muttered

"Yeah, got that one right," Soap said

"Same spread?" Sims asked

"Too long for this operation, we'll get caught up in one another's fire arcs. We'll have to do it as a single group."

"Fun... we're going to be firing in one another's ears aren't we?"

"Yeah and it's going to be bad when Ferot and Brezhnev open up."

"There's a hardware store down the block there, should we get some ear guards?" Gaz asked

"What do you mean 'get some ear guards' eh?" Sims asked with dark expression

"Just what I said, get some ear guards; we'll leave the guy a tenner in the register."

"Yeah, but civvy ear guards won't do much good for us will they?" Sims said

"Eh..." Kieran replied with a grunt.

"Let's just get the job done. Jan, you and your fire team are on point! Kieran, you and yours take tail guard. Let's do this people!" Sims ordered, replied knowing that Kieran and the remaining three members of the SAS fire team would be able to hold better in an exposed fighting position.

Jan lead off quickly, with his fire team in tow. They paused at the corner and scanned for Zeon patrols before dashing out across the street. The subway entrance was an older one, consisting of a set of stairs and a set of escalators. Knowing that the escalators were far easier to booby trap, he lead his fire team down the regular stairs but he was wary none the less. When they reached the bottom, they found that the retreating city mass transit workers had dropped the security grates. Muttering curses, Jan searched the gates for some way to get them open but he came up empty handed.

"What's the hold up?" Sims called from her position half way between the top and bottom of the stairway.

"They dropped the gates!"

"I can see that much," Sims replied

"There's no way to open'em from the outside Captain!" Ferot shouted in reply.

_'we're screwed,'_ Kieran thought

"I can get them open with detcord," Soap said

"Yeah, and you can have half of the world looking for us too." Kieran replied, "And we need every inch of detcord we can

"True enough," Soap replied with a sigh

"Would a standard concussion grenade at least destroy the lock?"

"It'll destroy the locks but it'd be louder'n detcord. I've got a few extra feet of rope thermite. I'd prefer to use detcord or a breaching charge but we've gotta do what we've gotta do." Soap said as he doffed his Bergen.

"Get to it, I've got eyes on Zeon heavies headed this way," Kieran ordered as he dropped his EBR to its sling and brought his DSR-1 to his shoulder

"You're going to use that beast in here?" Sims asked as she scooted in next to him to get eyes on the threat

"Yeah," Kieran replied as he leveled his crosshairs on the chest of a Zeon heavy trooper and pulled the trigger. Kieran's 300 grain hollow point boat tail round impacted with over 5,000 foot-pounds of force and knifed through the soft outer layer of the targeted soldier's armor. Kieran didn't bother to watch the soldier fall as he caught sight of the grey cloud of ceramic dust from his target's armor disintegrating. He shifted targets as the first soldier collapsed to the ground. His next target dove for the ground just as Kieran fired his second shot. The bullet impacted the target's neck, sending him down in a fountain like spray of blood.

"That was a nasty one," Brezhnev muttered as he depressed the trigger of his MG-4

"Grenadier to the front," Sims ordered.

"What's going on?" Sergeant Breakers asked,

"You and Vic put some HE down range."

"HE downrange, roger that ma'am." Breakers said as he dropped down to a knee and flipped his grenade launcher's safety off.

Soap was able to tune out the sounds of the firefight raging above his head, but the errant shell casings that bounced down around him were starting to grate on his nerves. So far, he had counted no less than 15 shells that had snaked their way into his web gear. He cringed when Brezhnev and Ferot opened up at the same time, showering him with more shell casings and ammo belt links than he cared to count. The thermite rope he was working with looked like detcord and came on neat little spools like detcord, but it had a red band every foot to make telling the difference between the two easier. He rigged the charges in the shape of a door way that was just wide enough for them to slide through with all of their equipment. For precision's sake, he rigged the charges as three separate charges so that he could control the way his opening was formed. He pulled the safety cap off of the first charge's detonator and pulled on the striker lever.

The Striker lever ignited the rapidly burning magnesium compound in the detonator, which quickly reached the required temperature to ignite the thermite rope. The rope thermite began burning slowly at first, but as the charge reached critical temperature, the reaction accelerated rapidly. The burning thermite rope's intense temperatures made short work of the thin steel grate covering the entrance to the subway tunnels. As the top charge burned its self out, Gaz carefully pulled the pins on the other two detonators, as the volume of incoming Zeon weapons fire increased.

"How goes that door?" Sims called down as she dropped below the lip of the wall that surrounded the subway entrance to reload

"It's coming along, another few seconds!" Soap replied

"Good, leave the charges be and get up here!" Sims shouted as she pulled the charging handle and sprung back up over the lip of the wall

"Reloading!" Brezhnev shouted as he rolled under the lip of the wall and hit the release switch for his MG-4's ammo box. He tossed the box aside and pulled a fresh one from his web gear. He carefully laid the ammo belt into the MG-4's action, slammed the cover shut and pulled the charging handle.

"Breakers, Marco put a pair of Frags down range!"

"Don't waste'em, we're through the grate!" Soap shouted

"Phased pull back; Jan take your fireteam and secure a beachhead in the damn station. My fireteam, get down to the midpoint of the stairs! Mick, you guard our rear!"

"Got it, securing the station," Jan shouted as he slid down the stairway's railing, with Marco, Ferot, and Doc Evans in tow.

"Get moving Cap'n!" Kieran shouted as Gaz slid in next to her and began firing his rifle

"Let's move!" Sims shouted as she dashed down the stairs.

"Get moving Tinkerbelle!" Gaz hissed as he pulled Tinkler off of the wall

"I'm moving damn it!" Tinkler hissed in reply as she slid down the railing after her CO.

"Ok Breakers, you're up next!" Kieran ordered

"Roger that," Breakers said as he dropped down below the wall and sprinted down the stairs

"When are we falling back?" Soap asked

"We'll let them get a good lead on us, we're going to be tied up here for a while." Kieran replied as he pulled a frag grenade off of his web gear and pitched it at an advancing cluster of Zeon troops.

"How long are you planning on hanging out up there?" Sims called over the radio

"Have you found the tunnel?" Kieran asked

"Not yet..." Sims replied sullenly

"Call me when you find it, and not a moment before. And before you ask, we don't need anyone's help."

"I'm sure you don't. Keep yourself safe, I'll give you a call after I find this damn door." Sims replied

"You do that Cap'n." Kieran muttered as he brought his DMR back to his shoulder

"Should we break for a better position?" Gaz asked as he dropped below the lip of the wall they were fighting from behind to reload his rifle again.

"I don't think we can afford to do that, because this is our only way in truly." Brezhnev said

"I don't have enough explosive to blow another entrance," Soap said in his turn to reload

"That solves that one then. We're stuck here for now," Brezhnev said as he scanned for targets

"Aren't we bloody ever," Kieran said as he scanned for targets of his own," Everybody fix a corner and keep your eyes open. I think we've beeten'em off for now,"

Sims heard the firing die down above her head and was tempted to call Kieran over the radio, but she knew that it would more than likely earn her an irate and unhelpful reply. The fact that she couldn't find one set of doors was beginning to wear her patience thin, and her hormones were not helping her at all. She heard a excited shouting and cursing behind her, and at first, she ignored it. However, the racket didn't abate after what she considered a reasonable amount of time. She wheeled around and was about to shout at whomever was making the noise however, there was nobody behind her. Just before she was about to shout at the entire team, Kieran, Gaz, Soap and Brezhnev rolled through the hole in the access grate.

"What the hell is wrong with you guys?" Sims hissed, using Kieran as a convenient target for her frustrations.

"Did you see the look on that bastard's face?" Gaz asked with a laugh

"Oh god that was classic!" Kieran said with a snort as he pulled Sims in against his side, "You ok love?"

"I'm just fine..." Sims hissed, "What are you four on about?"

"Nothin," Soap and Brezhnev replied immediately

"Nothing eh?" Sims asked, trying to glare menacingly at them and failing utterly

"Al... it's not something you need to worry..." Kieran started to say, but he fell silent and cocked his ear towards the opening with a curious expression on his face.

"Fuckers!" Gaz hissed

"I thought you got that bastard!" Soap hissed

"I did!" Kieran replied irately

"Obviously not fast enough!" Brezhnev muttered

"He didn't even have the squealer up! They must have had a drone on us..."

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Incoming! Everybody away from the entrance!" Kieran shouted

"Christ... what the hell is with this OP?" Sims shouted as Kieran grabbed her by the installed hand grip on the back of her target vest and dragged her away from the entrance.

The first three 90mm mortar rounds had been fired while the SAS team was debating whether or not they had hit the spotter. The trio of rounds was tracked through the majority of its flight by an orbiting reconnaissance drone, and when the fire control computer had determined that the mortars were going to hit the target within the acceptable circular error probability, it sent the go signal back to the fire controllers in the individual mortar vehicles. When each controller received the fire mission launch order, they lifted the covers off of their firing switches and pressed the fire switches.

In the back of the 90mm mortar carriers, the mortar's breaches slammed open automatically as the turret indexed to the correct angle and trained the guns up to the right angle. As that was completing, the first set of 90mm rounds dropped from the magazines into the breaches, which closed with a hydraulic whine. Once the breaches were closed again, the fuse was ignited and the mortar's propellant charge detonated, sending the projectiles down the smooth barrels and out into the atmosphere. As the first rounds were traveling downrange, the mortar's breaches were opening again, and the second rounds of the salvos were dropped into the breaches. This process continued until each of the ten mortar carriers fired its allotted ten rounds for a grand total of 100 rounds downrange.

"Kieran, what the hell are we going to do about this mess?" Sims asked as the first rounds began impacting above them

"The most they can launch is 100 rounds," Kieran paused as he tried to remember the facts he had learned ages ago about the Zeon's saboted 120mm mortar system, "Standard 90mm round weighs two point seven pounds... meaning they can only flight 270 lbs of ordinance at one time. A drop in the bucket compared to what we're about to do to them."

"But we are carrying nowhere near..." Sims said, pausing as a piece of rubble bounced off of her helmet, "270 pounds of explosives!"

"That doesn't matter, because 1 pound of precisely placed explosives is far more effective than one hundred pounds of randomly placed explosive. We're only carrying a tenth..."

"A tenth?"

"There 'bouts," Gaz said as he checked his Bergen

"Oh Christ... this is going to be very, very bad," Sims moaned as a series of cracks opened in the ceiling above them.

"Relax Captain; we do know how to use explosives properly,"

"I sure hope so," Sims muttered as the mortar barrage stopped, "How long until they reload?" Sims asked, casting a worried glance skyward

"The next barrage, if they get authorization to fire, could be landing any second," Breakers said

"He has a point," Tinkler said with a snort

"Hey guys!" Ferot shouted excitedly," I think I found our door!"

"Eh where?" Jan asked as he looked over the concourse railing

"It's down here, in between the tracks!" Ferot shouted as he pointed at a large steel plate in the middle of the tracks

"Right on Marcus!" Evans shouted as he examined it from the platform," Let's get it open and out of this death trap eh?"

"Stand down you guys! Get back onto the platform!" Sims shouted, "Let Kieran and the SAS down there first to check it for booby traps. We need a defensive perimeter here too. Marcus, you and Breakers get up here to the concourse and cover the entrance. Stay mobile you two, and make sure the positions you pick are close enough to the stairs that you can sprint down here if and when , you and Jan set up at the foot of the stairs, and be ready to ambush anybody coming down that way. Doc Evans, I want you set up under good cover to provide crossfire on the base of the stairs. Kieran, you four better get to that damn hatch quickly, I don't like where we're stuck.

"We're on it," Kieran said as he examined the hatch in question from the edge of the platform, before he slid down onto the tracks themselves.

"How are we going to do this?" Gaz asked as he surveyed the area," I don't like that rumbling sound at all... could be a damn train full of bad news headed our way and we wouldn't be able to see it, not in this dark."

Kieran grunted his agreement with Gaz's statement as he surveyed the platform for defensible positions against a possible Zeon rail-born assault. "That's about the size of it... Gaz, you and Brezhnev set up on the opposite platform, to guard against anything untoward. I'll stay on this platform here to cover from this angle. Get near the tunnel mouth and fire away from friendly positions. We'll set up an angle fire on the rails just in case anyone decides to sneak up and be troublesome. Soap, you get down there and examine that hatch smartly and don't leave anything to chance. If need be, we can breach it with a concussion grenade." Kieran ordered

"Watch the third rails you lot, I don't need to tell you what those'll do to you if you come into contact with them!" Evans whispered over the radio

"We'll be careful doc," Soap replied for the group.

"Heads up! We've got people in the tunnels coming from the south!" Brezhnev whispered urgently over the radio net

"Cover me, I can't get on target," Soap replied

"On target, we've got you covered," Gaz replied

"On target... Sims, spin somebody off to back us up." Kieran said

"I'm on my way, any idea what's headed our way?" Sims asked as she crept down the stairs quietly to the platform proper

"Nary a one; could be street bums, could be Zeek infantry; no way of telling right now." Gaz replied as he adjusted his posture slightly. "I don't like this; we can take it from three directions at once and be completely exposed to any two of them,"

"Yeah, I noticed," Soap spat as he was in the most vulnerable position.

"Keep your fucking trap shut and work on that damn door," Sims hissed irately.

"Cool it Captain, yelling at us isn't going to help a damn thing. Kieran replied as he leveled the crosshairs of his rifle on the head of one of the people walking down the tunnels at them.

"Jan, take your fireteam and secure the northern tunnels. Leave a couple of landmines up on the concourse."

"Landmines? Are you sure about that?" Jan replied, taken slightly aback

"Yeah, by the time we're done with this city, the amount of UXO in this damn city will be measured in tons and they'll be picking it up for years to come. Two more landmines won't make a difference. If you feel that badly about it, set the auto detonators for like 12 hours or something." Sims said irately

"Hot contact, Zeeks in the southern tunnels," Kieran replied

"Shit, set those mines quickly and get the hell down here!" Sims hissed loudly over the radio.

"Stand by all... it's just a herd of bums in pilfered combat gear," Jan said as he caught sight of the way they were shuffling along.

"It's a ploy," Kieran said," Notice their physique, and clean shaven faces. It's the Zeeks and they're just trying to lull us into allowing them in close."

"Got the door open," Soap called urgently over the radio

"Good," Sims said, "Kieran, take your team down there and scout ahead for us. We'll deal with these zeeks up here,"

"Alright then, get a move on Soap!" Kieran ordered as he scrambled onto the tracks.

General Knute took her seat in Centric Guard's operations center. She surveyed the room around her, as she settled in for another watch. She had fourteen different units deployed out in the field, including the sandhogs, and each unit was in various stages of their operations. Four teams were on their way back to Centric Guard, having completed their operations, and three more were still out on the field. That left her with seven units actively engaged in operations. Of the seven she thought to herself six of them were able to me monitored and managed from Centric Guard. The Sandhogs however, were incommunicado again, and that fact irritated her slightly. Her predecessor had told her that directly trying to manage the Sandhogs from her chair at Centric Guard was a bad idea. She was however determined to bend the Sandhogs to her will or see them disbanded and sent to the brig. She knew that her authority didn't extend to the SAS members; however it did cover the regular members of the Sandhogs. She could make their lives living hell, in so far as the regulations of the Federation allowed her. And the thought of her subduing the wildest of the wildest and bringing them back under proper control and the accolades that would bring her didn't hurt the concept either.

Knute looked up from her displays as her XO Ian Flair entered the command center, towing a pair of colonels. "Yes, what is it?" She asked irately as they approached her.

"Well ma'am," Flair said as he shuffled through the papers in his hand, "I thought you might like an update on the situations."

"I can see for myself what's going on," She said, her lack of coffee causing her to snap unnecessarily.

"Yes ma'am, but there are other things going on that aren't displayed on the monitors." Flair said

"Such as?" She asked, knowing Flair propensity to brown nose

"Well ma'am, you might know that the Sandhogs have dropped off the net again, but you might not know the reasons why."

"And you would?" Knute replied sweetly, masking her irritation.

"Of course ma'am," Flair said, missing the cue to shut his mouth, "According to my first hand knowledge of the Sandhogs, they've gone incommunicado because they're planning on something nefarious; perhaps even treacherous to the Federation's interests."

"I see... Do you have any evidence of their treachery?"

"None directly ma'am, but with these special forces types there's not much evidence required honestly," Flair said, pulling out a data chip and handing it across, "I believe this will satisfy your curiosity."

"Thank you Mr. Flair. Now, I've got quite a bit to get done, and I believe there is a goodly amount of paperwork waiting on your desk for you." Knute said, waiving her hand dismissively.

Knute tossed the data chip to the side dismissively, figuring that she had far more important things to deal with. She knew that the sandhogs were going to be a little side project for her, not something that would require her full time attention and effort.

While Knute was considering the fate of their careers, the soldiers of the Sandhogs Company were far more concerned with their mission's success. Sims looked around her in awe at the sheer size of the structure that they were supposed to bring down. The station was an interchange between the city's four main subway lines and high speed rail transit, which necessitated a massive structure, totaling three stories in depth. Including the structure from the old deep underground subway system, and added maintenance and equipment floors, the structure was a grand total of 10 floors deep.

"Hey guys... how the hell do you plan on sinking this damn thing into the ground eh?" Sims asked as she surveyed one of the massive columns.

"In all actuality Captain, its rather simple really. You see these four massive columns here in the middle?" Soap said

"Yeah?" Sims replied as she watched Kieran duct taping a block of explosive to the skin of one of the columns.

"If we take them out, and fracture the walls, it'll loose all of its support and come straight down. We'll add some weight to the upper floors by breaching water mains and stuff like that and that'll help pull the structure down. I've got enough explosive to demolish this place twice over, so we'll be damn sure it'll go down." Soap said as he tossed a reel of detcord at Gaz

"Are you sure..."

"Yeup, I sure am." Soap said as he turned and shouted up a ladder way at Brezhnev, "Hey, how goes the leaks?"

"The bastards shut off the municipal water, so I've breached every pipe I can think of... there are some massive pumps up here, and what looks like a big ass well head too, do'ya think we can make something of that?"

"Heck, let me have a look at it... could be a feeder from the underground reservoir... which'll serve our purposes nicely." Soap said, a feral grin growing across his face

"I'll leave you boys to it then." Sims said as she shook her head and began walking away

"What are they up to?" Jan asked as he heard lots of excited shouting from the SAS team

"I don't know, and to be honest I don't really want to either. They've found a well and lots of big pumps so they think we're on top of the city's reservoir or something like that."

"And what exactly does that have to do with anything?"

"I didn't ask..."

"Probably best if you didn't... What's gotten into them, they're smiling like they've won the god damn lottery..."

"I don't know, but its probably best if we start evacuating the area now..." Sims said, growing wary of the big, shit-eating grins they all wore

"That doesn't look good..." Doc Evans said

"No... It sure doesn't," Sims said as they all broke into a headlong sprint, "No... This isn't very good at all,"

"What's going on you four?" Jan shouted

"RUN!" Kieran bellowed

"What?" Sims said as she turned on them, to see rather scared looks on their faces

"Run damn you RUN! No time for questions, just run!" Gaz shouted excitedly

"Mother of god, what have they done now?" Ferot asked

"I don't think I want to know just now, but following their advice seems a very good idea!" Tinkler said as she turned and began sprinting too

"You know, I think that Tinkerbelle has the right idea... I say we get moving," Sims said as she waived them all after Tinkler

"For the love of god RUN!" Kieran bellowed as loud as he could

"Oh holy shit..." Sims muttered as the ground around them shook violently, "What have you four done this time?"

"We didn't do anything... Up those stairs to the right!" Kieran hollered as the sharp crack of igniters popping reached their ears.

Sims yelped with surprise as her foot caught in the groove where a rail line used to run and she pitched forward. Not missing a beat, Kieran grabbed the handle on the back of her web gear and dragged her up the stairs. With a mighty heave, Kieran hauled her back up onto her feet and shoved her ahead of him as the flat cracks of the first charges detonating reached their ears.

At the ground level, the demolition charge's detonation was barely felt, as the massive structure absorbed the shockwave and the sound. Their results however were almost immediately appreciable. Just as Soap had planned, the four main columns shattered and the whole weight of the structure sagged onto the cross beams and the weaker columns. The cross beams were anchored to the walls, which normally would have sufficed to hold the structure up until engineers could get cribbing in place to reinforce the structure and replace the columns. However, Soap had planned for that when he was setting up his demolition charges and placed a ring of charges around the walls of the lower two floors to fracture the walls.

The commander of the Zeon mortar battery felt the structure give way beneath him slightly with the destruction of the primary supporting columns. He looked around him with a curious expression plastered across his face, his body telling his consciousness something that it couldn't quite come to terms with. Before he could even attempt to give voice to his concerns, the second string of charges detonated. The underground structure sagged again, and this time he was shocked to see the entire area he was standing on sink down three feet. He knew something was terribly wrong as he sprinted for the edge of the newly forming sinkhole. The Zeon commander was racing against the irresistible pull of gravity, a race which he had no prayer of winning at all.

Below him, the charges that Soap and Kieran had installed to fragment the walls and rob the structure of its secondary supporting structure were doing their job and them some. The series of cracks that the charges spawned raced up and down, spreading across the floor of the structure, which just so happened to be the roof of the city's water reservoir. The water kept in the reservoir was under extreme pressure, and having found a weak point, it was going to exploit it to its fullest as it surged up through the cracks in the concrete foundation slab.

At first the thick, reinforced concrete acted as if it was going to hold, but it stood no chance. Millions of pounds of concrete was being dragged down by gravity, and millions of gallons of water were being pushed up against the slab. It didn't take but a few seconds for the slab to fail entirely and allow the water to come surging up. The force of the water, and the pressure wave of air it created in front of it served to exacerbate the cracks forming and accelerate the structure's collapse. The pressure wave shattered through the weaker floors and hatches, followed up quickly by the water as the heavier chunks of concrete sank down to the reservoir floor. Lighter chunks of concrete and equipment were pressed up against the floors above them, serving as wedges and chisels to create and exploit weak points in the structure.

From their position in the subway tunnels, the Sandhogs perceived the collapse of the underground interchange and maintenance structure came with a violent roar and a huge pressure wave as the water surged up, seeking equilibrium. For the Zeon forces on the ground, it was as if they were standing on a carpet and somebody had suddenly yanked it out from underneath them. One moment, they were standing on what they believed was solid ground, and the next they were falling through a black abyss into the tender cares of the surging water. The water boiled out of the hole and surged across the city streets, taking with it what it could and submerging what it couldn't.

"Dear god all mighty, what have you done now?" Sims muttered as water began collecting in the bottom of the tunnel they were in.

"Um... This wasn't something we planned for," Kieran lied

"Hell if it wasn't! You damn well knew this would happen and you bloody well decided not to tell us!' Sims hissed, "If you pull this kind of bullshit again I swear to god I am going to rip your testicles off and shove them down your neck!"

"Cool it Al," Kieran said with an exasperated sigh, "Just climb those stairs and we'll be fine."

"Don't you 'cool it Al' me," Sims muttered harshly

"Don't chat, just climb!" Gaz shouted at her

Sims bit back the angry response, knowing that it wouldn't help them at all. Her side was tightening up, and each stair she climbed sent white hot daggers of pain through her body. She knew that it wouldn't take long before she either ripped a through the layer of anticoagulant jell out or something worse. In an unconscious effort to lessen the pain, she didn't lift her leg as high and the toe of her boot caught on the lip of a stair. She pitched forwards and right before she hit the stairs, Kieran grabbed the handle on the back of her body armor again.

"I'm sorry," She said softly as Kieran slid her around behind him

"You'll be fine," Kieran said as he hoisted her up onto his back, "Hold on tight,"

"Kieran... We're going to need to Echo two six." Gaz said as he dropped back slightly to maintain pace with Kieran

"Yeah, I thought so too," Kieran said as he shifted her weight slightly," Let's find a good area and set up for Echo two on six," Kieran said looking at the SAS fireteam

"What's going on?" Sims asked tiredly, "I heard my name mentioned,"

"Relax and be quiet," Gaz said sharply,

"You..."

"Don't start Captain, you're injured and exhausted and you've lost a fair amount of blood. I don't need, nor want to deal with you and your objections right now. I am the doc and I am giving you orders." Gaz said sharply

"In all actuality, I'm the Doc," Evans said with a smile," After all; legally you aren't a medic are you?"

"True enough, true enough," Gaz said, remembering that medics were technically not allowed to be engaged in offensive combat operations.

"Let's not worry about technicalities right now. If we get to a secure area with a table, I can suture that wound. You hit it with coagulant gel and just bandaged it right?"

"Yeah, we needed to get moving again, because that area was hotter'n hell." Gaz said

"He was there too Gaz," Kieran said, "We'll have to run out to the suburbs and take over somebody's house or something. We could hunt up an apartment building or something for a secure area."

"Can't we just go to one of the city's hospitals?" Tinkler asked

"Not on your life kiddo. The Zeeks will have taken over every hospital and doc's office throughout the city in the hunt for medical supplies. Can you hold on until we make it across to friendly lines?" Kieran asked

"My side hurts," Sims moaned

"I know that hon," Kieran said softly, "We'll get you taken care of,"

"I still say we Echo two her ass," Gaz said

"I'm sourly tempted to agree. Problem is, I don't know if we have any of our Echo two assets around. We could echo two her with the rest but who knows how that'll be handled."

"Hey, weren't the guys from 2 SAS supposed to be out here?" Brezhnev said

"Hey Sparky, bring that radio here," Brezhnev said

"Ok..."

"Don't know, 2SAS won't share much with us these days," Soap said, "I think they're still pissed with 3SAS about the ass kicking they received during the rugby match,"

"They would be," Brezhnev said with a dismissive wave of his hand

They looked around curiously as the stutter of helicopter and tilt rotor engines reached them through the overhead cover. Kieran glanced down at his watch and muttered several curses as the sound grew louder. It became a constant din as the flight of helicopters rattled over their heads.

"Good or bad?" Jan asked, his watch having been demolished during the mortar attack on them earlier

"Not good, not bad," Soap said, "If its our helos they're about 20 minutes early,"

"If they're Zeek helos on the other hand?" Ferot asked

"Then we're screwed," Kieran said as he slid Kate back onto his shoulders.

"Where are we going off to?" Sims asked as she elbowed Kieran's side so he'd drop her.

"We are going to figure out what the hell is going on around here," Brezhnev said as he checked his MG-4's ammo belt, "We're probably in for one hell of a firefight too... The Zeeks will be damn pissed about their mortars."

"What the Zeeks are pissed about and not pissed about is none of our concern right now," Kieran said, "What we need to worry about is how we're going to get the hell out of this damn city,"

"Why don't we ride out with the damn evac flights?" Evans asked

"Because that'll be a boondoggle, and we have no clue where they're headed back to. They could have staged the flight out of Centric Guard but there are a few FOBs and stuff they could have flighted out of. We'll call Brembo back in and hopefully he can flight us out, but if not we'll have to hop a ride with the evac convoy. They might be pissed enough to make us hang out too,"

"I hope not, I want a hot bath and some sleep," Sims muttered irately as she massaged her side slightly

"You and your baths," Kieran said with a smirk as he popped the magazine out of his rifle to check his magazine, "Let's roll!"

Kieran looked around him carefully, scanning for sniper and machine gun nests. He didn't think there would be many set up so far behind their own lines, but the Zeeks weren't known for using book tactics. He knew that if there were any, they would be unmanned, because they would be prepared fighting positions if their lines were pushed back. A glint caught his eye and he quickly ducked back into the burnt out office he was using for cover. Kieran knew that the glint he had spotted could be anything from a simple piece of glass being blown in the wind to a sniper's scope. He judged the range to the light to be just over 1500 yards, too long for both of his rifles. Even though it was too long for his DSR-1, he decided to take advantage of its high power scope to examine the area where he saw the glint from. He scanned carefully, trying to figure out what it was that had caught his eye. He was about to dismiss it when another glint caught his eye.

_'Oh boy... what have we here?' _Kieran thought to himself as he adjusted the focus on his scope

"Find something Kieran," Sims asked quietly as she maneuvered herself carefully alongside of him

"Yeah, I found something alright, just not sure what the hell it is,"

"Fun... lemme have a look?"

"Give me a second," Kieran said as he sent the video feed from his tactical computer to hers

"Can you adjust the focus some?" Sims asked

"How's that," Kieran said as he adjusted the focus ring slowly

"It looks like a spotting scope," She replied after a thoughtful pause, "I think you've found one of your friends,"

"Thought so too," Kieran replied as he adjusted the focus back to his preference

"Come on," Sims muttered affably

"Later dear later," Kieran said flatly, "Slide back down out of the way dear,"

"Why?" Sims asked sharply

"Because I need you to... Hey guys, round up the parts and give'em here," Kieran said

Sims watched curiously as the SAS members passed a series of components to Kieran. She had noticed the parts on their backs and wondered what they were, and now it was plainly obvious. As Kieran snapped the barrel and receiver together, it was obviously a Steyer IWS 2000. She rolled her eyes as Brezhnev handed over a large magazine of 15.2mm rounds for Kieran's rifle. She wasn't quite sure what he wanted to achieve, but it was obvious enough that he was intent upon using it and she wasn't going to get in his way.

"Clear out guys," Kieran said as he snugged the butt of the rifle up to his shoulder.

"Son of a bitch... you're going to fire that in here?"

"Yep," Kieran said as he adjusted the electronic scope with the controls mounted on the stock of the rifle where his thumb normally would have rested.

"Oh boy..." Sims muttered as she ducked her head into the room behind him.

Kieran studied the area around where he had seen the glint carefully. With his IWS 2000's digital scope, he was able to zoom in much farther than he could with the traditional scopes on his DSR-1 and EBR. Designed to take out armored vehicles and other high value hostile material assets, the IWS 2000 was a massive weapon system. What Kieran had discovered could only lightly be described a high value target. Based on all of the communications equipment, clean uniforms and maps in the room he was looking into a Zeon command center. Given the weapons and uniforms of the troops in the room it was obviously Zeon, so he didn't have to worry about a friendly fire incident. What he did not know though was whether he was looking at a forward operating base or their main command center. The fortifications and equipment weren't enough to tell him which it was, so he just watched it quietly, waiting to see if it was worth firing a shot into or not. Kieran watched the room quietly, for what seemed like ages, waiting for a target worth the 150 Fed Dollars it cost per round for his rifle.

Kieran was about to give up on it when the room suddenly became a hive of activity. Several people, who he assumed were senior enlisted or officers, were shouting orders and moving towards a door. Kieran pulled off of his scope as he heard the low growl of a Samson's engine. He looked around briefly for it and caught sight of the vehicle was an up-rated Samson that had been equipped to be used as a mobile command center, and was studded with extra antennas. Its twin 14mm machine guns were manned and ready even though they were far behind friendly lines. Instinctively, Kieran knew that that the sudden flurry of action and the vehicle combined to equal a senior commander of some type or another. Kieran zeroed his rifle against the entryway, hoping to take him out early. However, that was not going to happen as the Samson's crew and the officer's protective team was a little too sharp for that one. Kieran watched with muted frustration as they took their slow time to get up to the command center. Having already zeroed his sights and prepared to fire into the command center, all he had to do was wait for the target to be exposed at the doorway. Kieran fought down his excitement as he caught sight of the commander entering the room. With barely concealed glee, he inhaled deeply and leveled his rifle's crosshairs on his target's chest. He wasn't excited at the prospect of killing another human, but he had wanted to fire his IWS 2000 for weeks and this was his chance. It wasn't what his rifle was designed for, but he was going to do it anyhow. Kieran pulled the IWS 2000's trigger and the massive rifle bucked back against his shoulder. The two meter muzzle blast and ear splitting sound were sure to draw all sorts of attention, but Kieran couldn't care less as he scanned for more targets.

Technically, the IWS 2000 was not a sniper _rifle _at all, because its barrel wasn't rifled, rather like the barrel of a Modern Era tank's cannon. The IWS 2000 also didn't fire a bullet at all; instead it fired a deadly hyper-velocity APFSDS round. The round's actual diameter was only 7.6mm in diameter after its sabot discarded at the end of the rifle. The tungsten carbide round Kieran fired exploded through the plate glass of the window and struck the commander square in the chest. The round punched through the commander's body and exploded out the back of his torso in a disgusting red cloud. The whole room froze, not sure what had happened, giving Kieran the opportunity to empty the remaining four 15.2mm rounds into the room's equipment to render the command center ineffective.

"Give me another box!" Kieran shouted

"Box coming in," Brezhnev shouted as he handed another 5 round magazine around to Kieran.

Kieran fed the Magazine into its magazine well and snapped the bolt back to chamber another round. He re-sighted on the Samson's roof to take advantage of the thinner roof armor. Before he could get any rounds into the Samson, its gunner had slewed his twin 14mm machine guns around to Kieran's position and began firing them. The heavy 14mm rounds were designed to rip into other armored vehicles and the walls around him stood minimal chance against them. Kieran grabbed his IWS 2000's sling and slithered back away from the wall as the storm of 14mm rounds ripped the building to shreds around him. As his boots reached the doorway, Brezhnev and Ferot grabbed onto them and pulled him back into a semi-safe position.

"You crazy son of a bitch, look what you've gotten us into now..." Sims said with a smirk as the Samson's gunner continued to fire his 14mm machine guns at nothing

"We're having a party now!" Kieran said as he slung the heavy IWS 2000 across his back and pulled his EBR around to firing position.

"So... should I kill it?" Tinkler asked as she slid her AT-4 off of her back

"Not quite yet... wait until the fucker stops to reload and then we'll hit him. Get the AT-4 up onto your shoulder and armed." Kieran said, "Gaz get me a pair of carabeners, Brezhnev get me some climbing rope."

"What are you doing?" Tinkler asked as Kieran clipped a carabineer to the handle on the back of her web gear and a second one to the handle on her body armor in the middle of her back and tied the lines to the carabineers

"Right after you fire, we're going to pull you back in here with these ropes. That way you're in the bastard's line of fire for a very short time," Brezhnev said as he ducked his head around the corner to examine the room, "We're going to have to find a different firing position Mick, this'n isn't going to work,"

"Shit... Gaz check right, Brezhnev you check left,"

"Got it," Gaz said as he booted open the door in front of him and surveyed the room quickly and methodically, "Left is clear!"

"Right foul!" Brezhnev shouted as he dove back through the door followed by a storm of 14mm rounds, "Son of a bitch was waiting for me,"

"Alrighty then," Tinkler said apprehensively as she approached the room warily

"Relax Tinkerbelle, you'll be alright," Sims said with a reassuring pat on her shoulder

"What ever you say Cap'n," Tinkler said as she kneeled down in front of the window.

Tinkler knew that anywhere on the Samson's roof would pretty much ensure her a kill as she leveled her sights on its roof. The Samson's gunner was training his turret around on her so she thumbed long and hard on the AT-4's firing switch. The massive back blast filled the room with smoke, and sent the 5KG unguided rocket screaming downrange. True to their word, the second Tinkler's AT-4 fired Kieran, Brezhnev, Gaz, Soap, Ferot and Breakers hauled back on the two lines and pulled her savagely away from the window. Even though she knew it was coming, Tinkler yelped with surprise as she was dragged backwards. Unawares as to its operator's condition, and the pain it was about to cause, the AT-4's rocket screamed down into the roof of the Samson. The angle of the round's impact caused it to bounce back up into the air slightly before detonation, but it didn't make a difference in the end as the Samson hadn't been armored against top attack weapons. The roof armor stood no chance against the AT-4's explosively formed plasma jet, which cut through it like a knife through heated butter. Once inside, the plasma jet hit the Samson's fuel tanks and an ammunition locker. Both ignited immediately, spelling doom for the Samson's crew as they attempted to scramble from their burning mount.

"Let's get moving now, before they call in reinforcements!" Sims shouted as she lead them around through the offices of the building they were in to get to the other side and away from the Zeon forces.

"Take it easy captain, you aren't super woman," Evans chided

"I'll be fine," Sims countered as they all began to run down the stairs.

Kieran muttered curses underneath his breath as his unwieldy IWS 2000 caught on a stair and nearly sent him tumbling. He tried to adjust the way he was carrying the rifle, but no too ways about it he had a lot of weight on his back and it was already wearing him out. He muttered curses and dropped his DMR back onto his sling, and secured it to the front of his vest so that it wouldn't shake around. With his hands unlimbered, he slung he IWS 2000 back around and into his grip. If they ran into infantry contact, he was going to be in trouble until he could unlimber one of his lighter weapons.

"Do you want to break that down?" Sims asked

"No time..." Kieran said between breaths, "We've gotta keep moving from that datum,"

"Alright," Sims replied,

"How are we going to play this?" Jan asked

"We'll split into three units and keep moving towards friendly lines. Our end objective is to get to friendly lines and get picked up. Breakers, Tinkler, Ferot and Jan, take point. Evans, you stick back here with Rapp and myself. Kieran split off into your own fire team and provide rear security. We'll kick the doors out on three!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

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In the Earth Federation and Duchy of Zeon's seemingly never-ending quest to beat one another into submission, many different types of weapons were developed. Soon, mobile suits became the norm for combat on the ground, and in the skies. However, mobile suits get damaged, pilots are forced to eject and are left wandering uselessly around like babes in the wood. Realizing this, the Earth Federation and the Duchy of Zeon maintained their Corps of Infantry. Of these, the federation's most infamous unit was the 127th Dragoons, 6th company, the Sandhogs. Equipped only with what they can carry on their backs, the Sand Hogs are tasked with one of the most thankless and dangerous jobs ever, going in and rescuing downed mobile suit pilots

* * *

Stuck in and amongst the wreckage of a Zeon armored convoy with hostile fire coming from all sides, Corporal Velletia Tinkler was beginning to wish she had chosen to retest for the mobile suit squadrons after all. At least then she'd have a nice thick chunk of armor around her body, instead of the awful flimsy feeling body armor she was wearing. Tinkler winced and jerked her head back as a fragment of armor caught her cheek and sliced it open. She knew that pausing for first aid would take one or two rifles out of the fight and that wasn't going to happen as far as she was concerned. Tinkler was using the burnt out hull of a Zeon Cui as cover. It provided her decent cover, but it had a gaping hole above her head and it reeked of burnt flesh. Despite its drawbacks, it provided her with enough cover to return fire effectively. She muttered a series of curses under her breath as she caught sight of a cluster of Zeon infantry screening a duo of heavy troopers with a recoilless rifle. She was about to call it out when a Zeon infantryman hurled a grenade at her and forced her drove back into the Cui's cockpit. She snatched her last remaining grenade off of her web gear, pulled the priming pin, let the spoon pop free and ducked around the corner and pitched the grenade downrange.

"Can't you raise any backup Rapp?" Sims shouted from the storefront she was using as cover.

"Centric Guard has promised us that they'd expedite air support to our location and has advised us that we need to hold this street," Rapp reported as he reloaded his rifle

"How the hells long do they think we're going to have the ammunition to hold this street for?" Sims muttered

"Dunno... but if we can't hold it, they've got a fairly straight line through our lines and to HQ," Jan replied

"Where are those SAS bastards when we need them?" Ferot muttered as he paused to allow his barrel to cool.

"Don't know; Kieran said that he was going to help, but he doesn't seem to be doing it," Sims muttered.

The whole of the sandhogs company cringed and dove back into their cover positions as a string of explosions ran down the street in front of them. Nobody was sure what caused the explosions, and they unnerved everybody as they seemed to be getting bigger as they raced down the street.

"Everybody Ok?" Sims shouted when the explosions finally stopped

"I'm good," Tinkler said as she wiped at the film of blood soaked dust from her cheek

Kieran listened to everybody check in over the radio, and rolled his eyes. There was no reason for it at all, but Sims was too entrenched in her regular army ways, despite his attempts to break her of them. He wasn't quite sure if the string of explosions they had planned had quite done the job he wanted to until the building in front of him began to sway slightly. With an excited shout, he took to his feet, sprinting as fast as he could. As he reached a glass door, he brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired twice to clear the glass from the window, allowing him to sprint through without stopping. As he cleared the building, he spun on his knees and began firing into the group of Zeon soldiers running away from the building. Gaz was right on Kieran's heels and slapped his shoulder as he slid into firing position, to tell Kieran to advance down the street to a new firing position. They advanced down the street in similar fashion, moving with the speed, precision and cool under fire that only combat experience and superior training could provide.

Sims finger lifted off of her rifle's trigger as a building swayed drunkenly on its foundation. She wasn't sure what had happened, but she did know that it was one of the buildings involved in the explosions earlier. She was less than pleased as the building parted company with its foundations and collapsed across the street. She knew well that the only people callous enough to drop a building on an advancing string of infantry were Kieran and his detachment of SAS soldiers. It was brutal and unnecessarily violent, but many things that the SAS did came across that way. She also had to concede the fact that it was terribly effective at getting the job done, the street was blocked and the widest and clearest pathway between the Zeon and Federation sides of the city were blocked effectively.

However, Kieran and the SAS weren't anywhere near done with their demolishing of the city. They hadn't had enough explosive to drop all of the buildings they wanted to drop, but they had enough to finish off buildings that had already been damaged, which was exactly what they had done. It wasn't going to be anywhere near as neat or precise as a commercial demolition team could have achieved, but a commercial demo team wouldn't have had bullets flying around them, and they would have had weeks or even months to analyze the structures in question and plan the perfect amount of explosive and exactly where it needed to go. They did however have plenty of experience destroying things, and were driving home that fact brutally. The uncontrolled impact of the first building sent shockwaves through the ground, which caused the weakened buildings to sway dangerously.

"What the hell is going on?" Jan shouted as several more buildings began to collapse

"I Know of only four people who'd do something like this," Sims muttered as the wall behind her erupted in a cloud of dust, dirt and stone fragments

"How many more of these bastards do the Zeeks have?" Breakers muttered as he flipped open the breach of his grenade launcher and felt for another grenade, "Son of a bitch..." He muttered when he realized that he had no more grenades left,

"Don't look at me," Marco said after checking his own grenade belt, "I'm out of'em too,"

"We're screwed," Evans muttered as he brought his own rifle up to his shoulder and fired. His aim and reaction times weren't on par with the rest of the team, but then again he wasn't as well trained with firearms as were the rest of the team

"Tinkerbelle! Put a AT-4 downrange!" Sims shouted as she caught sight of a thick cluster of troops scaling a pile of rubble

"AT-4 downrange!" Tinkler replied as she unslung her AT-4 and dropped to a knee. She depressed the firing switch with her thumb, but all she heard was the very disturbing thunk of an igniter firing without igniting the AT-4's propellant. Tinkler held her position for a few seconds waiting to see if the rocket would fire or not. She muttered several curses as a storm of bullets pinged off of the Cui's hulk and the ground around her. She realized that it was a misfire and abandoned the AT-4, launcher and all, shouting misfire over her radio as she ran over to Sims' position to get clear.

"Oh great..." Sims muttered as the rocket fired on its own and streaked away drunkenly, "Can you recover it Tinkerbelle?"

"Not worth the risk for her Captain, we'll snag it on our way through," Kieran replied

"Ok, you do that... hey guys what the hell is that?" Sims asked as heavy clanking sound rose above the sounds of battle

"Not a clue," Jan replied as he dropped behind the wall he was using as a firing position to reload his rifle

"Son of a bitch... its a landmate!" Brezhnev shouted as he caught sight of the large humanoid machine moving up to their line of battle

"What the hell are we supposed to do about that?" Sims shouted angrily

"Shoot the son of a bitch, what else?" Breakers muttered as the Landmate clambered ackwardly across the piles of rubble

Breakers and Sandhog Company's other grenadier, Vic Marco popped around the corners that they had been using for firing positions at the same time, both of them zeroing in on the hulking landmate. Their Mk-77ICC's spat 6.8mm rounds at 800 M/S. The bullets were copper jacketed steel and designed for all around performance, and had enough oomph to penetrate infantry armor. They could even penetrate thin steel armor plating at close ranges, but they were not enough to stop the landmate. All 66 rounds that they had put downrange bounced seemingly harmlessly off of the landmate's aligned crystal steel armor. The landmate's pilot brought its primary weapon, a 20mm auto cannon with a mix of HE and AP shells, and began dumping rounds first few rounds pounded into the ground and the hulk of the Cui that they were using for cover. The Landmate's shots were getting steadily more accurate, forcing Breakers and Marco to split from their position and sprint clear of the Cui's wreckage. Both troopers were shouting curses as the landmate swept its fire in their direction. The two dove behind cover they hoped was thick enough against the machine's vicious 20mm autocannon.

Thinking quickly, Soap fished in his gear pouch and came out with a quarter pound demolition charge. Muttering curses as the Landmate swept the Sandhog's position with its 20mm autocannon, he fished into another gear pouch and came out with a 20 second timed fuse and shoved it into the demolition charge. He pulled the pin out of the timed fuse, and pulled the cover off the demo charge's adhesive layer and hurled the improvised anti-landmate charge at the landmate's shoulder. As he rolled back down the wall of rubble, he heard the satisfying smack of the demo charge striking the landmate's shoulder. He hoped that the adhesive in the demo charge was enough to stick it to the landmate until it detonated or long enough to have it positioned close to the landmate's body when the charge went off. As it was, the detonator fired about 5 seconds early and exploded as the landmate's operator was trying to find and remove the offending charge.

The charge was enough to demolish a full up battle tank, and the comparatively thin armor of the landmate's shoulder stood no chance. The demolition charge tore open the landmate's shoulder armor, and the combined weight of the 20mm autocannon and its heavy recoil, combined with the damage being caused by the demo charge caused the arm to be severed from the landmate. The damage didn't stop there however, as harder than steel overpreasure wave tore its through the landmate's boddy. The right half of the torso went the same way as its arm, however as the body pannels and structual components seperated from one another, the ammunition chute for the 20mm autocannon came loose with enough force to trigger a high explosive 2omm round. The 20MM HE round's cook off started a chain reaction of cook-offs as the stricken landmate fell to the ground, flame and smoke spewing from the large hole that used to be its right torso, accented b the occasional 20mm round cooking off. Another landmate came around the corner and opened fire on Soap's position, figuring that if he put enough ammunition into the pile of rubble he was firing at the soldier behind it would be dead. What he didn't realize however was that Soap was long gone and had no intention of returning to that particular rubble pile as the landmate's pilot ripped jt so shreds.

"Somebody do something about these fucking things!" Sims shouted as another landmate rounded the corner and began firing rounds at where she and Tinkler had holed up.

"Rapp open the general frequency!" Kieran ordered

"General coms frequency open, link established!" Rapp replied

Kieran muttered curses as a 20mm HE round's concussion knocked his helmet and mic out of position. He snapped them back into place and chucked a smoke grenade at the landmate to irritate its pilot, before depressing the red emergency transmission switch on his tactical computer, "All stations clear the net for emergency traffic, repeat all stations clear the channel for emergency traffic!"

"All stations this is Centric Coms, switch to range two," the duty coms center commander at Centric Guard said, "Emergency traffic, the channel is clear,"

"All stations All stations, this is Sandhogs 3, Broken Arrow, Broken Arrow, Broken Arrow repeat Sandhogs 3 Broken Arrow!"

"Sandhog 3, can you transmit coordinates?"

"Transmitting now!" Kieran shouted over the increasing volume of fire

"Coordinates received. All Stations All stations rush available support to the transmitted coordinates!"

"Sandhog 3, this is Angel 6, Broken Arrow coordinates received; can you clear an LZ for an ammo drop?" Brembo asked

"Negative Angel 6, negative... until someone kills a few landmates for us we're pinned down,"

"Roger that, we'll hold orbit until you can cool off an LZ for us," Brembo replied

"Sandhog 3, this is Arc-Light, do you copy?"

"Arc-Light, Sandhog 3 copies... and damn if we aren't glad to hear you sir!" Kieran replied

"Roger that Sandhog 3; do you have a designator on you?"

"Uh stand by Arc Light..."

"I've got a designator!" Rapp replied

"Roger that, Arc Light, this is Sandhog 3, we have a..." Kieran's reply was cut off as the Landmate turned to fire on his position.

Shouting curses, Kieran popped over the wall and dumped 20 7.62mm rounds from his EBR into a landmate's torso. The rounds weren't much bigger than the ones being fired by the rest of the team, and they moved at the similar velocities, but they had heavier bullets and Kieran was able to place them into a much tighter group. The burst put a series of divots into the Landmate's chest, and slowed it down, but they didn't stop it. The machine's operator spun his mount around carefully and dumped a very long burst of 20mm rounds from its auto canon in his direction.

"God helps those who help themselves!" Kieran muttered as he slammed a fresh magazine into his Mk-14 and sprung back up into firing position. He dumped another volley of 20 7.62mm rounds into the Landmate's armor. Much to his dismay, the projectiles pitted and scarred the landmate's armor but little else. Kieran slid back down into his cover position as the landmate turned to fire on him again and felt in his ammo pouch for another magazine for his Mk-14. Somehow, in the heat of the battle, he had done something he had never done before, lost count of the magazines he had fired. Muttering curses, he dropped his Mk-14 onto its sling and pulled his DSR-1 around to firing position. The massive DSR-1 wasn't the optimum solution for his situation because of its slow rate of fire, but Kieran hoped its heavier .50 caliber rounds would do the trick. He sprung up and over the lip and sighted in on the Landmate's humanoid arm. He pulled the trigger, and felt the massive rifle recoil painfully into his shoulder.

The Landmate's shoulder jerked back slightly with the impact, and the armor divoted in around the bullet, with a few sparks as unlike metals were forced against one another. Kieran had no interest in what the bullet had done, it apparently hadn't stopped the landmate and that was all Kieran needed to know as he lined up a second shot into the landmate's torso.

"Sandhog 3 Sandhog 3, where the hell are you?" Arc-Light 6 shouted over the radio net

"Arc-Light 6, this is Sandhog 6, we have a designator over." Sims replied

"Roger that Sandhog 6, we are standing by for designation," Arc-Light 6 called

"Arc-Light 6, targets are designated, call the ball!" Sims shouted,

"Arc Light 6 calling the ball! Friendly air inbound get clear from the target zone!" Arc Light 6 shouted.

Arc-Light 6 was the lead aircraft in a flight of 8 modified FF-6-TIN Cods that had been launched from the flight line at Centric Guard. Arc-Light flight's air to air missile racks had been replaced with launcher racks for the classic Zuni 2.75mm air to ground rockets. Each rocket mounted a 6 pound high velocity fragmentation rocket, moving at nearly supersonic velocities. They were also equipped with four 25mm machine guns, loaded with a potent mix of HE, AP, and API-T rounds. Coming in low and fast to avoid Zeon counter air, Arc Light flight's TIN Cods screamed in at a mile's separation so they didn't fire into one another on their strafing runs. Arc-Light 6's pilot bumped his throttles up gently as the Zeon Landmate spun on his aircraft and fired off a wild burst at his aircraft. The slight acceleration closed the range enough to bring his Zuni rockets into range, and he ripple fired his aircraft's weapons pods. His aircraft carried two large LAU-68 nineteen round launchers full of war shots and a pair of smaller 5 round LAU-68D target illumination rocket launchers. Arc-Light 6's pilot ripple fired his two LAU-68 launchers. Each launcher vomited flame from both ends as the 2.75mm rockets screeched out of their tubes. Each launcher fired its full load of 19 rockets downrange, for a total of 38 launches and a total of 228 pounds of high explosive downrange.

Even though 228lbs of high explosive was not much comparatively speaking, it was more than enough to do the job. The exposed Zeon troops stood no chance under the withering storm of fragments from the Zuni's warheads and secondary fragmentation kicked up by the warheads. The Landmate was badly damaged by the flying fragments, but it was still fighting. A lucky burst of 20mm rounds ripped through Arc-Light 6's starboard engine, forcing him to pull out before he could hit the target area with any of is target designation rockets. However, Arc Light 1, the junior pilot of Arc-Light flight, and 2nd in line to the fire zone saw the target without the need for designators. As his squadron lead rolled out of the line, Arc Light 1 flipped her master safety off and squeezed the trigger on his stick, sending a storm of 25mm rounds downrange. The potent mix of two HE rounds, two AP rounds and an API-T round tore through the landmate's armor like paper. With his ammunition counters nearing zero, Arc Light 1's pilot firewalled his throttles to clear the fire zone in a quick climbing turn. However, Arc Light 1 was not going to get away scot free. Waiting on the other side of the pile of rubble that Kieran had created to block the street and slow the Zeeks was a company of Zeon heavy infantry, backed by a full squad of Landmates. The squad of Landmates opened fire as one, tearing through the light armor of the TIN Cod.

"Mayday Mayday Mayday this is Arc Light 1 going in!" Arc Light 1's pilot screamed as her aircraft disintegrated around her. She reached down between her legs and yanked hard on the ejection handle. Around the edge of her cockpit, a bead of powerful detcord fired to shatter the cockpit, and release it from the body of the aircraft. The airstream ripped the canopy back and away, clearing the way for the ejection seat to fire. The Ejection seat separated from the burning aircraft, just as it exploded underneath her. A piece of exploding aircraft fouled his chute, but her remained conscious long enough to deploy her reserve chute for the short ride back to the streets of the city.

"Centric Guard, this is Bulldog 6, we're approaching the Sandhog's position,"

"Roger that Bulldog 6, Sandhog 6, this is Centric Guard, do you copy?"

"Sandhog 6, go ahead Centric!" Sims replied as she reloaded her rifle

"Sandhog 6, you're released from local control and are returning to Centric Guard's command structure. Your orders are as follows; you are ordered to link up with Angel 6 to resupply and pick up your SAR equipment. Once you have completed that, your next orders are to recover the downed pilot of Arc Light 1. Once you have completed that, you are ordered to standby with Angel 6 for further orders."

"Roger that Centric Guard, we're on it." Sims replied as she caught sight of a company of Federation regulars advancing up the street to their position."

"You Sims?" One of them asked

"I am,"

"Bulldog 6, we're taking over your station here. Where are they coming from," He asked as another Arc-Light fighter streaked in, raining rockets down on the Zeon forces.

"Primary threat axis is down the street there on the other side of that pile of rubble. They've tried a few flanking maneuvers and once or twice they've tried to come in from behind, but never with enough strength to make much of it. Be warned, they do have Landmates operating in the area."

"Roger that; there's a field about 600 meters south and east of here that you can use to link up with your tilt rotor,"

"Thanks," Sims replied as she waived for her team to regroup, "Everybody hear our orders?"

"Yeah," Jan replied

"Back to real work eh?" Evans said with a snort

"Let's go already, he's behind the lines and he's only got a little pistol," Kieran said

"Ok, we're going to hook up with Brembo, switch to our SAR kit and pick up fresh ammo."

"Who ever ends up with control of this street is going to find enough brass and lead to restock a friggin division," Brezhnev muttered as another TIN Cod from Arc Light flight streaked in, firing its 25mm machineguns.

"That's an understatement," Sims muttered as she pulled a few errant shell casings out of her web gear.

Colonel Brembo, operating under his squadron call sign Angel 6 banked his tilt rotor sharply to line up with the narrow drop zone that they had selected. To speed the process of getting in and out of the combat zone, he left his engine nacelles locked in their 45 degree position, so that he could quickly choose between vertical and horizontal flight depending on how the situation presented its self. He was closer to an active zone of combat than was entirely comfortable, but he had to get the ammunition and gear to his team otherwise they would be stuck in a very bad position.

"Angel 6, this is Sandhog 6, are you just going to kick the gear and ammo out to us?" Sims asked

"Negative, I'll pop into a hover quickly, let you aboard and then haul ass for clear air to let you guys reload. After that, I'll drop you back there and we'll take up a holding orbit about 20 from the crash site."

"Roger that, we're standing by," Sims said as the sound of the tilt rotor grew loudly.

True to his word, Brembo brought the tilt rotor into a hover a few feet above the ground, with the tailgate extended. The Sandhogs, hunched over against the downwash of the rotors, broke from their cover positions in twos and sprinted for the open maw of the tilt-rotor's tailgate. Sims stood just inside of the tail-ramp and counted her company's personnel as they sprinted up the ramp. Once she had verified the number with Jan, who had been counting from the other side, she signaled to Sergeant Nance. Sergeant Nance turned and shouted to the cockpit for Brembo to take off again.

"Let's go people, change gear quickly," Sims ordered as she pulled her allotment of ammunition and grenades from the supply crate sitting in the middle. She watched curiously as each of Sandhog Company's SAS members ditched their assault bergens for odd looking hard bergens. The hard bergens looked like Rapp's backpack style combined satcom and long-range radio unit, but they were thicker and had what looked like compressed gas lines and extension cords hanging off the sides. They strapped on various tools and ropes as well, making Sims even more curious, but she daren't ask as they all looked a little cross.

"Who the hell selected this load out?" Kieran muttered as he put his IWS2000 into its specially designed carry case, followed by his DSR-1.

"I don't know, but they're going to get an earful," Brezhnev said as he dropped his heavy MG-4 into the supply crate and pulled out a Mk-77 ICC.

"Who ever loaded this doesn't know jack shit about anything," Gaz muttered as he pulled out a few fragmentation grenades and shoved them into their carrying pouch on his web gear's belt.

"I know it; we've got the right rescue equipment... but who ever loaded the rest of this is stupid bordering on criminally stupid," Soap said as he shoved a couple extra magazines into his web gear before handing a pair of extras to Brezhnev and Gaz

"What are you complaining about?" Doc Evans asked, thinking it an appropriate question.

"Who ever loaded this supply crate broke the rescue kit down into 4 carriers rather than three... due to weight, that removes Bear's MG-4 from our load out and forces him into an ICC. The ICC is a good weapon, but it isn't a SAW and that's not cool," Kieran asked

"How much does one of those weigh?" Sims asked

"They weight around 40 pounds," Brezhnev said

"I'll take it," Sims said

"Captain, you're wounded,"

"So what; I will not loose an MG-4 to one of these crates. Brezhnev, take your magazines and distribute them to the rest of the guys and then take care of your MG-4." Sims ordered

"Right," Brezhnev said as he doffed the rescue kit carrier and retrieved his MG-4. "Kieran, you taking your Mk-14 over the DSR-1?"

"In these quarters, the DSR will get me killed," Kieran replied, "If we need to hit targets beyond my Mk-14's range we'll have to improvise,"

"I've got a strange feeling we'll be getting good at that real soon," Sims said as she shrugged into the rescue kit's harness.

"Hold still while I adjust that for you," Kieran said as he pulled her over carefully

"Two minutes to drop!" Nance shouted

"Two to drop aye," Sims replied as Kieran positioned the rescue kit on her back properly.

"How are we going into the LZ?"

"Groundspike!" Nance shouted, cutting Brembo's response off

Brembo shouted as he caught sight of the incoming MANPAD AA missile, "Hold tight everyone!"

Aero-Pilot 3rd class Margret Talon shook her head and pulled the manual activation pin out of her emergency beacon. It was designed to activate automatically when she separated from her ejection seat, but the lanyard linking the beacon to the seat back had failed, and the beacon hadn't activated. She hadn't been wounded, but her shoulders, thighs and hips were killing her around where the straps from her harness had snapped taunt. She pulled her pistol from her harness and pulled the slide back part the way to make sure she had a round chambered. With that done, she snatched her survival kit away from the back of her ejection chair and dashed away from the smoking chair's rocket motor. She knew that they would send a SAR team after her, if they had one that wasn't already occupied with other downed pilots. She caught sight of a shadow moving behind her and spun on her heel, bringing her pistol to firing position, but it was only the remnants of a once majestic oak tree blowing in the wind.

Talon was so far out of her element that she didn't have the slightest clue what she should do next. The survival training she had been given in basic training had only included surviving in the desert and in the oceans, the only two areas where she would be operating. Surviving urban combat was not even talked about in the Federation's pilot survival skills training course. She had seen how some of the ground infantry had moved during training exercises and was trying to emulate them to the best of her abilities. As she approached the end of a block, she slid to a stop and looked around her, her pistol pointing everywhere she was looking just as she was supposed to do. Once she was certain that there was nobody with hostile intent around, she sprinted forwards across the intersection, her pistol held down by her side. As she reached the other side of the intersection, a harsh cracking sound reached her ears and the wall next to her erupted in a cloud of dust. She knew that somebody was shooting at her now, and the adrenaline began pumping once more. She spun around to face the threat axis and brought her pistol up to firing position.

A pair of Zeon light infantry had spotted Talon and opened fire on her with their assault rifles in a bid to capture her. They had seen her go down just a short distance from their present position and had hoped to find her there but it wasn't to be. They advanced carefully around the corner, remembering that she was armed and the Federation had a nasty habit of arming its pilots with armor piercing pistol ammunition. The leader of the pair, a corporal, sent the private he was working with around the corner. Not surprisingly, Talon opened fire, and even less surprisingly her first rounds went totally wide. Still pulling the trigger, Talon adjusted her aim and the private was struck by the last three 5.7mm rounds in her pistol. The private fell, holding his neck where one of the small, high velocity rounds had punched through. The Corporal came around next with his rifle loaded and ready to fire, while Talon was struggling to get a fresh magazine into her pistol. The Corporal brought his rifle to his shoulder and was about to open fire when a loud bang above his head distracted him long enough for Talon to figure out why her pistol wouldn't go bang and to kill the Corporal.

Talon looked up as the familiar sound of one of the Federation's SAR tiltrotors reached her ears. She relaxed, knowing that her rescuers were at hand and she would soon be away from the city. However, when the tilt rotor passed overhead, she nearly fainted at the sight. The tilt-rotor's starboard engine nacelle was burning, and on the verge of separating from the airframe entirely. Fuel was trailing from a series of holes goughed into the wing fuel tanks that the self-sealing fuel tanks simply couldn't stop. She scampered under an awning as the tilt-rotor passed over her head, spraying burning fuel everywhere as its pilot fought desperately to keep his aircraft under control. She stepped out from under the awning and scanned the sky until she caught sight of the stricken tilt-rotor once more. She was downright horrified as the tilt-rotor's port engine nacelle vomited black smoke and seized up on the tilt-rotor's pilot.

Brembo was showering curses at his aircraft as he fought with the unruly beast. What he thought was a single MANPAD was actually about ten by his best estimate. He had managed to avoid most of them, but with those numbers the fact that he had only been hit twice as a miracle. His starboard engine was still running, but its nacelle was demolished and he doubted that the complex rotating mechanism would respond well to any control inputs. Brembo glanced down quickly at his engine status panel to see if he could restart the port engine, but according to the warning lights the engine's FADECs or Fully Automatic Digital Engine Controllers had both died and taken the entire engine with them.

Brembo yanked on the fire extinguisher bottle's deployment handle once more, in a vain effort to put the fires out on his aircraft's only working engine and keep it running. However, the nacelle's mounts failed and the engine fell away from the airframe. He pulled the emergency fuel dump handle and showered the city with hundreds of gallons of military grade aviation fuel. With that done, Brembo pulled the airbrake deployment handles and the manual deployment lever for his landing gear. He lined up with one of the City's wider looking streets and prepared to land. The tilt-rotor's main landing gear struck the less than ideal landing surface hard. Brembo fought with his controls to keep his stricken bird lined up with the street, but with his port engine nacelle still attached the tilt-rotor was too wide to make it down the street successfully. If the street had been cleared of civilian cars, Brembo would have simply gotten away with dragging the port nacelle's rotor blades through the glass facades of the buildings along the street he had picked to land on. As it was however, the engine nacelle hooked on a car and the tilt-rotor swerved drunkenly and plowed headlong into a building.

"Is Everybody OK?" Sims shouted as she pulled herself back to her feet

"I'm fine," Tinkler said

"I'm fine too," Breakers said

"I think everybody back here is ok," Doc Evans said

"Concur," Kieran said, "Its not us I'm worried about… You Ok over there Sergeant Nance?"

"My ass is sore as hell but I'll live," Nance said as he surveyed the wreckage of his beloved aircraft.

"How about you Brembo, are you OK up there?" Sims asked

"I'm fine… but I'm pinned into the cockpit," Brembo replied as he slammed his shoulder futilely against the cockpit hatch.

"I do believe this qualifies as an oh fuck situation," Sims muttered with a sigh, "Ok boys and girl here's the plan. Jan, I need you to secure us a perimeter so we can perform rescue operations without Zeek interference. Sergeant Nance, how good can you shoot?"

"I know which end the bullets go in, and I know where they're supposed to go," Nance replied as he pulled his Aircrew Survival Rifle out of its storage compartment next to his jump seat.

"Good," Sims said , "Hold still colonel, we'll get you out of there in a jiffy,"

"You say that as if I have a choice in the matter," Brembo muttered as he slammed against the hatch once more.

When their tilt-rotor had plowed through the building that it was now wedged into, its nose had glanced a support column. The relativity weak stone facade on the column had exploded away in a cloud of dust and stone chips, but the stout concrete encased steel column underneath the stone had stood strong and stove in the side of the cockpit at the worst possible position. The force of the impact had warped the door frame -and the entire cockpit frame for that matter- badly and had also bent one of the hydraulic actuator arms like it was made of plastic. The two forces combined to keep the door solidly shut, as if it were an integral part of the airframe rather than a purpose built opening.

Kieran studdied the problem carefully, considering all of his options. He reached into the tool pouch suspended from the side of his rescue pack and pulled out a pop Tool and a hammer. The pop tool was designed as a SAR team's primary multipurpose tool, and in an effort to reduce the amount of equipment that they had to carry and give them longer range it combined several tools into one. Its primary end was a special bit designed to be inserted into the emergency release of any Federation aircraft or mobile suit's cockpit. The other end's head was formed into an axe on one side and a pike on the other, both of which could prove to be useful if correctly used. Kieran inserted the emergency release bit into the proper receptor and positioned himself to slam the hammer into it. The emergency release bit fit into a special port on the head of the hydraulic actuator arm and its socket. And when Kieran struck it with the hammer, it would seperate the actuator arm and the socket allowing him to open the hatch after he had popped both of them. _Or at least that was the theory of it anyhow_ Kieran thought to himself with an irritated sigh as he slammed his hammer into it once more for good measure.

"Well that was less than spectacular," Kieran muttered as he yanked his pop tool out of the emergency socket and put it back into the tool pouch with his hammer.

"So... what'ere we going to do now?" Sims asked

"Shut up, and let me think." Kieran muttered as he reached into his tool pouch and came out with another interesting tool. The 2nd tool was officialy known as the Functional Utility Bar, but to the SAS rescue teams it was known as the FUBar. One end was formed into a standard prybar that could be used for anything a standard prybar could be. The other end was formed into a rough F shaped claw that with a little creative thinking could once again be used for all sorts of things. The other end of the F shaped claw was formed into a hammer head, and a series of holes had been placed into the middle of the bar's grip to lighten it, but creative users had found all sorts of uses for the bar because of them. Frustrated, Kieran swung the F claw at the seam between the door's hinged side and the skin of the airframe. Much to his satisfaction, the longer part of the F claw sank into the gap between the two portions, if only a little bit.

Knowing exactly what Kieran intended to do, Brezhnev went over to Sims and pulled his impact hammer, a driver cartridge and a hammer out of 'his' rescue pack. Brezhnev fit the impact hammer over the hammer head of Kieran's UF and drew back with his hammer. Kieran stepped away from the mated UF and impact hammer and signaled for Brezhnev to hit the impact hammer. When the impact hammer was struck, the driver cartridge fired and slammed a 4 pound Gundarium slug into what ever was at the other end. With the adapter on the end of it, it fit perfectly over the UF's hammer head and drove the F shaped spike deep between the two panels.

Both SAS members looked rather satisfied with themselves as Gaz came over with one of their climbing ropes and slotted a carabiner into the opening in the FUBar's handle. Gaz tossed the loop of line to Soap who wrapped it around a column that would serve as a fulcrum of sorts. Soap, Gaz, Brezhenv and Kieran all grabbed hold of the line and yanked with all of their strength. Nothing happened, so they repositioned for better mechanical advantage and yanked again. This time, a section of the door around the UF's claw popped back out towrds its normal position. Confidence buoyed, the SAS members redoubled their efforts and yanked again. This time however, the FUBar's claw ripped through the door and came flying out like a scythe, eventually embedding itself into a Sheetrock wall.

"This is going to be a pain in the ass," Soap said as he yanked the FUBar out of its hole and kicked it across the floor to Kieran.

"Yep... definitely a pain in the ass," Brezhnev muttered as he put the impact hammer and his regular hammer back into his rescue pack.

"Hey guys, We've got Zeeks comming!" Jan called over the radio

"Son of a bitch," Soap muttered

"Count?" Sims asked

"Looks to me like fire teams advancing to hunt any survivors down," Jan replied, "Can't get a good count on'em, but I'd say we've found ourselves a company or so's worth of Zeeks,"

"Ok, this has been promoted from FUBAR to full blown pain in the ass status," Kieran grumbled as he set set his pack down and pulled a clip on visor out.

"Here," Gaz said as he tossed a length of power cable to Soap. As he was their medic, Gaz's rescue pack was full of medical supplies, but he also was able to carry the team's longest power cables and compressed gas hoses as they were light and fit onto the outside of his pack.

"Thanks," Soap said. Soap's pack was actually a portable power unit that generated the electricity and compressed air necessary to power the tools split up between Brezhenv and Kieran's packs. Kieran had doffed his pack and picked out a compact twin bladed saw. Kieran glanced around him to make sure everyone was clear and activated the saw, which whined into life with a dental drill's ear piercing, sanity destroying screch. The Saw's twin, counter-rotating diamond abrasion blades bit into the tilt-rotor's cockpit armor and began sawing through it like it was paper. Twin showers of sparks erupted from the saw's blades as Kieran carefully cut away the forward portion of the door's frame. Kieran stopped the saw as he reached the botom of the cockpit hatch frame, because the longeron below the hatch would have ripped his sawblades to pieces before he could cut through it. He checked his cut angle and set the blade agianst the doorframe again and prepared to make another cut, when the harsh brip of a zeon machine pistol reached his ears.

Outside, the sound of the saw was just as obnoxious as it was inside, but for different reasons. The walls of the building and the distance between his position and the saw limited the ammount of sound that made it to Jan's ears, but it was still loud enough to mask some of the subtle sounds of the battlefield. Jan cringed at the harsh brip of a Zeon soldier's machine pistol and spun to the direction he had heard the fire from and watched in horror as Kieran jerked stiff and fell to the ground. He quickly brought his rifle up to his shoulder and prepared to fire, when Kieran fired his sidearm from his hip three times.

"You alright McKnight?" Jan shouted

"I'm fine," McKnight said through gritted teath as he hauled himself back to his feet.

"Ok," Jan replied, "Outside guard, let's tighten up that cordon. Six, how long do we have to hold?"

"Unknown as of yet, but we are defnatly in trouble down here," Sims replied tiredly, "All points this is 6, keep a sharp watch on your sector, and be careful, they're moving through the buildings. Check your sectors, and be sure of your targets."

Brezhnev brought his MG-4 to his shoulder and dropped into a crouch as he spotted a zeon soldier's combat helmet sticking around a corner. Instead of trying for a head shot, he aimed the machine gun at the thin plaster wall and ripped off a long burst into it. His heavy weight 7.62X51 rounds were the same as the ones in Kieran's DMR, and they ripped through the plaster wall as if it weren't there at all. Even though he wasn't sure of his target, Brezhnev knew he had hit something as a prolonged, painful scream reached his ears. He knew that the wounds his round caused were nasty enough, but they were liable to be even worse after having gone through the plaster wall. To discourage the zeon from trying to come through that doorway again, he pulled one of his concussion grenades from his grenade pouch and tossed it around the corner. Brezhnev chose a concussion grenade, because he knew that it would be far safer and far more effective than a fragmentation grenade in their present situation. The concussion grenade was essentially a block of high speed explosive, wrapped in heavy tarred paper. The tarred paper made no fragments at all, but the overpressure wave from the chunk of explosive it surrounded provided more than enough oomph. The wall that Brezhnev had thrown the grenade around exploded into a cloud of wood, plaster chunks and dust, into which he tossed a second concussion grenade to finish the job.

"Use enough explosive there butch?" Kieran asked over the whine of the saw.

"I think it did the job," Brezhenv replied as he waited for the air to clear.

"It would appear so," Soap muttered as he spun around to cover the door.

"How much longer?" Sims asked loudly

"I'm working on it fast as I can for fuck's sake!" Kieran muttered as he finished his second cut above the hatch's actuators.

"I think... I think we've managed to get you useless ass out of here Brembo!" Kieran muttered as he fit the prybar end of his UF into a seam of the cockpit hatch and slammed his hammer into it. After several, increasingly more violent strikes the door seperated from the frame and crashed to the floor. Kieran reached in and hit the emergency release on Brembo's harness.

"You know, I am capable of getting myself out," Brembo said as he grabged his own Aircrew Survival Rifle from its rack next to his seat. He pulled the rifle's ammuniton pouch out next and slung it around his shoulder before fitting one of the magazines into his rifle.

"So... what now?" Gaz asked as he helped pack up their rescue equipment

"I think we need to find a way back to our HQ." Brembo said

"Sounds like a bright'n to me," Brezhnev said as he checked his ammo box

"I couldn't agree more," SIms said as she checked her GPS to figure out exactly where they had gone down.

Talon slid to a stop at the corner of an intersection, but she slipped on some spilt oil from where Brembo's tilt-rotor's engine had seperated and slid out of her relativly safe position. She tried to catch herself, but she was too tired and she fell to the dusty street in an ungraceful heap. She managed to keep her sidearm through the whole manuver and rolled into firing position to kill the Zeon infantryman staring right at her. She exhaled half of her breath, lined the sights of her pistol up over where she thought his heart was and pulled the trigger. The harsh crack of her FN 57 got the attention of another Zeon soldier Talon adjusted her aim and fired again, but this time her shot went wide and shattered a glass window. The second soldier brought his assault rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger at the same time, sending a wild spray of 8mm rouns downrange. He nearly emptied the entire 30 round magazine before he even managed to bring it to his shoulder, but once he got his rifle to his shoulder, he paused and took better aim at Talon. He only had 8 rounds left in his rifle's magazine, and he knew that as he leveled his rifle at Talon. Talon leveled her sidearm at the Zeon trooper, and they both pulled the trigger at the same time. Talon's hypersonic 5.7mm round cracked out and reached its mark nearly half a second before the Zeon soldier's round reached its. Talon's round took the Zeon trooper in the chest, punching through his armor like it was paper. The Zeon soldier's 8mm jacketed round hit Talon's thigh and punched out the back side of her thigh as if it didn't exist. She looked down at her thigh, and the blood fountaining out of it and knew then that she was dead. She collapsed back against the pavement and waited for the inevitable.

Kieran had seen the whole exchange and signaled to the SAS team. They sprinted to her position, rifles up and ready to engage any Zeon troops that made themselves targets. Given the long string of shots fired in the exchange, it was bound to attention and the SAS fire-team knew that well as they fanned out to deal with the situation. Gaz grabbed her by the shoulder straps of her ejection seat's harness and pulled her out of the block, smearing a thick trail of blood and eliciting pained screams from the wounded pilot. Brezhnev and Kieran took up defensive fire positions facing along the street that they had found her on, using the buildings on either side of them to restrict the zeon to a pair of directions to attack from. Soap crouched down next to Gaz and Talon to provide close cover for them.

"Jesus that's nasty looking," Soap commented as Gaz cut away Talon's piloting suit

"That's what one of those 8mm rounds 'll do to ya if you aren't careful," Gaz replied as he pulled a tourniquet out of his medical pack and set it on a pressure point to slow the bleeding while he fished a hemostat and a scalpel out of his pack

"Gaz, we don't have time for that!" Soap shouted as he fired a long burst into a pair of Zeon troopers that made the mistake of standing too close to one another.

"Well you fucking well better make time for it otherwise she's gone!" Gaz shouted in reply as a Zeon soldier fired at him

"Gaz, you take care of the Zeeks. I'll take care of her!" Doc Travis shouted over the rising gunfire

"You got it doc!" Gaz replied as he set the surgery pack down for Doc Travis and moved into a firing position to help Soap cover Travis and his patient.

"We've gotta get something solid in-between those bullets and the doc!" Kieran shouted as he slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle

"It would simplify things," Brezhev muttered as he ripped off a five round burst into the chest of an advancing Zeon infantryman

"Sandhog six, Sandhog six, this is Centric Guard, do you coppy?" Crackeled in over their headsets

"Centric Guard, this is sandhog longwave go ahead," Rapp replied

"Sandhog Six, this is Centric Guard do you copy?"

"Damn it all, I cant transmit!" Rapp shouted, "Transmission antenna musta been damaged in the crash,"

"Can't you put a new fucking one on?" Breakers shouted as he sent a 40mm fragmentation rifle-grenade downrange.

"It's busted off in the socket," Rapp replied as he examined the antenna over his shoulder, "I could fix it, but it'll take me a good fifteen minutes to rig someting and that's one less rifle for us to shoot back with..."

"What about Nance and I?" Brembo asked, "That's two more rifles, surly we can cover for one of you can't we?"

"You already are," Sims shouted as a grenade exploded far too close for comfort

"We sure stepped in it this time," Travis muttered as a burst of fire pockmarked the wall far too close for comfort, "I need something between me and those bullets... this is getting insane!"

"We're working on it for you doc," Sims shouted, " That bank behind you, will that work?"

"If it has to it will," Kieran muttered, "Gaz cover my hole will ya?"

"You got it," Gaz muttered as Kieran body slammed the bank's glass door. 250lbs of body armored, equipment laden SAS sniper slammed though the glass doors as if they were made of paper. Kieran didn't relish destroying civilian infrastructure, but he was pragmatic about it, and he considered the glass doors to be worth far less than the life of the still bleeding pilot. Gaz's tourniquet had staunched most of the bleeding, but it was hastily applied and not positioned properly to stop all of it. Gaz had wanted to cut into the meat of her thigh and get a hemostat on the artery to clamp it off properly, as not even their coagulant foam would be able to handle that kind of bleeding.

"Come on guys, I need somewhere where we can hold positon for at least fifteen minutes!" Evans shouted

"We're working on it!" Sims hollered back as she signaled for Breaker and Marco to fall back into the building that Kieran was sweeping

"Its clear! Get everyone in here now!" Kieran hollered

"We're moving now," Evans said as he took an extra turn on Talon's tourniquet and gently hoisted her into a fireman's carry. It wasn't the best manuver, but they didn't even have time to set up the field stretcher that they carried with them due to the incoming volume of fire.

"Last man!" Brezhnev shouted as he cleared the doorway and set himself up in a firing position

"Roger that, last man in the hole," Sims replied as she slipped behind a stone column to reload her rifle.

Rapp doffed his long-range coms unit and fished his tool kit off of his belt. He set pulled his multi-tool off of his belt and twisted off the old transmission antenna. He shoved the old antenna into his gear pouch and pulled a new one out. As he had feared, the antenna's connector had snapped off inside its socket on the backpack radio. Rappsurveyed the socket and clucked his tounge over the wreckage of the antenna's socket. The 'antenna' actually contained three seperate antennas that plugged into multiple pins in the socket on the backpack. Rapp's radio used individual recieveing and transmitting antenna pairs because it had to work in multiple theaters, which used different radio sets.

"So, how bad?" Kieran asked as

"Longrange is shot, pins snapped off in the socket... I can reach the batallion net and the division net but we sure as hell aren't getting centric. I can get them through the satelite, but we're going to be hard pressed to pull that off in the city."

"Yeah... so essentially we're running without coms?" Sims asked

"Yep," Rapp replied as he fitted the old antenna back on

"Lovely..." Sims muttered, "Try and raise somebody on the battalion or division net. We are going to need medivac pretty badly."

"How are we getting out of here?" Tinkler asked tiredly

"We're going to have to figure something out aren't we?" Sims replied with a snort

"Well, we can't exactly walk out of here can we..." Breakers mutted as Talon screached

"Doc... can't you keep her quiet?" Rapp asked, "Some pain meds? something?"

"Not really... without long-range coms, we can't check the medi-base, and I don't know what she is and isn't alergic to." Evans replied as he fished through his medical pack

"Damn it..." Sims muttered, "We're going to have to get her stable and get moving again..."

"I know it, " Eveans muttered as a window shattered above her head, "She's stable enough for us to move her but I can't sedate her other than local anastethics,"

"We don't have much of a choice here doc... I've got eyes on mechanized forces," Tinkler replied

"Son of a bitch..." Sims muttered as she tried to work out a plan,

"What are we going to do captain?" Nance asked nervously

"Ok... Brembo, you and Nance take the litter. Jan, you're running close guard on the litter Kieran you're taking point. Rapp keep up with trying to get somebody that can either patch us through to Centric Guard or get us a damn casvac. Move it out McKnight!" Sims ordered


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

* * *

General Knute watched as the Medivac tilt-rotor flared for landing, its twin turbo-props throwing out plumes of dust just as the wheels touched the ground. Medical crews from Centric Guard's hospital, ready to take care of the field treated wounded. She didn't dare approach the aircraft while its turbines were still running, because she had seen the horrific pictures of what had happened to an errant ground crewman that had strayed into the path of one while it was still running. As the medics gathered around the side cargo door to take Talon from Doc Evans, the Sandhogs, followed by Brembo and Nance exited through the cargo ramp.

She watched them curiously; wanting to see how nearly three straight days of combat had affected them. As they marched towards the waiting jeeps, it was easy to tell the difference between the SAS and the regular sandhogs. Differences in equipment aside, the sandhogs' SAS detachment didn't seem at all effected by 60 straight hours of combat. They still maintained the irrationally irritating self confidence and master of everything in sight attitude that they had left the base with.

The regular members of the Sandhogs were moving far slower, nearly 36 hours spent in a combat zone having extracted a heavy toll from them. She counted the approaching soldiers and came up one short, until she looked closer at McKnight. For a second she thought that he had sprung a 2nd head, something that wouldn't have surprised her given their inhuman endurance. However on closer examination, it turned out that McKnight's 2nd head actually belonged to Captain Sims.

"Good morning General," Soap said in passing as they marched straight for the waiting jeeps.

"Good morning Sergeant," she replied warily, gagging at the combined stench of burnt gunpowder, high explosives, sweat, exhaust and the various other smells of the battlefield. Much to her shame, the whole unit burst out laughing.

"I'll see you…"

"All do respect General; we just spent close to three days on the battlefield. Most of that behind enemy lines, and outnumbered by some absurd ratio. We've been shot at, shot down, chased around by Landmates, caught in mortar and artillery barrages, and pinned down in heavy fire for hours on end. We stink; we all want showers and we all want some sleep. Threatening us with punishment for laughing at a reaction to yours is not only obnoxious but a waste of time. Now please, excuse us so that we can get on with putting our gear away." Sims said tiredly

"Carry on then," Knute hissed as she stormed off for her jeep.

"Well said captain," Evans said with a smirk as he adjusted the shoulder straps of his med-kit.

"Thank you," Sims said tiredly, "But god do I want to get out of this damn uniform,"

"We're getting there," Gaz said, patting her shoulder supportively. .

"Not nearly fast enough for my likes," She said with a loud yawn.

"As I said, we're getting there," Gaz said with a smirk

"How in the hell do you carry this rifle around on your back all the time?" Brezhnev asked as he tugged uncomfortably at the sling of Kieran's DSR-1, "I thought my friggin MG-4 was uncomfortable on its sling but this is absurd,"

"I shoved some foam padding into the back of my vest to keep the bolt handle out of my back. Dunno if you've noticed or not, but when I'm wearing the rifle, I also use a carabineer to keep it positioned so that the bipod joint is in the air, not against my shoulder."

"Yeah, but it weighs a friggin ton!"

"So does what I'm…" Kieran started to say until Sims slid one of her legs in between Kieran's and tripped him.

"Asshole!" Sims muttered as he caught himself, just short of a face-plant.

"Oh get over it," Kieran replied acidly as he adjusted the way he was carrying her slightly. "I was about to say compared to the rifle…"

"Yeah what ever," Sims muttered as she leaned her head back onto his shoulder.

"You two need a hotel room," Brezhnev said,

"Don't they ever," Breakers said with a snort

"Hell, I bet we could scrape up a few bucks and get'em both out of our hair for a day or two," Evans said thoughtfully

"Hell doc, Kieran and those SAS bastards makes enough to put us all up in a hotel for a month!" Jan said with a snort

"In your dreams we do, we don't make a penny more than you do." Gaz said

"Pure bullshit," Sims said, "You make at least three times what we do!"

"And how would you know that?" Kieran asked

"I just do," Sims said

"How… woman's intuition?" Soap said with a smirk

"Something like that," Sims said, taking up an airily confident expression

"You're full of it," Gaz said, "We all get paid on the same damn pay scale that you do. We even get the same danger and cost of living stipends that you do."

"Now you're the one spouting bullshit!" Ferot said

"I spout no shit unless I'm on the throne," Gaz said with a laugh,

"Now that I happen to know is a total load of it!" Soap said with an ironic bark of laughter

"Enough guys, lets get our gear put up and rack out for a while," Sims said with a yawn

"Now there's the first intelligent thing you've done in 12 hours," Kieran said with a smirk.

"You be careful mister, I know where your rack is!" Sims said

"It'd be kinda hard for you to forget where it is," Brembo said, joining the conversation

"After all, its your rack too!" Jan said with a snort

"If I'm not mistaken, the regs forbid that don't they?" A man with colonel's insignia on his collar points said as he slid off his perch on the railing of the stairs leading up to the Sandhog's barracks

"They do sir," Kieran said warily as the colonel approached

"It's a running joke in the unit sir," Sims said by way of explanation

"One wonders what started said joke, but that's of no importance right now. You are Captain Alice Sims of the 66th Dragoons' Sandhogs company correct?"

"Yes sir," Sims said as she set herself gingerly on her own two feet, her side aching badly from the shrapnel wound

"Colonel Altman Raleigh 786th Strike Squadron," Raleigh said

"And what can we do for 786th Strike?" Sims asked

"A change of assignment,"

"A change of assignment?" Sims asked

"That's correct. Our last SAR unit went MIA, and hasn't been heard from and according to General Knute, Centric Guard can dispense with your services until we can scratch up a proper SAR team."

"She can do that?" Tinkler blurted

"Yes Tinkerbelle she can," Jan said, his voice mirroring her concern and

"I take high offense to that remark," Sims said with a sigh, "But as Batou pointed out, she is well within her powers to do that,"

"If I may," Raleigh said, "I think it's a mistake on her part, and were I in your position I would take offense to the statement as well, given your exemplary record. However to be quite frank I would be lying if I didn't say that I see her error as my gain. I cannot and will not force you to accept the assignment. I can however warn you that you'll be demoted to half-pay and left stranded here at centric guard should you not accept the assignment."

"He just said that he couldn't…" Tinkler muttered

"He cant, and he isn't," Sims said, "He is pointing our position out

"I personally don't like it any more than you do. However as I said, I am fully prepared to see General Knute's error as my gain."

"What're the conditions of the transfer… as you know, Knute does not have the authority to transfer an SAS command at her whim,"

"Officially it would be a TDY command. In all probable reality it would be almost a permanent transfer given our situation." Raleigh said, "I am fully prepared to grant your unit the leeway it deserves and allow your… shall we say unique, berthing arrangements to stand. I can't offer you all of the operational variety Centric Guard can, nor can I offer you all of the comforts that Centric Guard can…"

"However, the chance to get away from here and back to real SAR missions is what you can offer?" Sims finished

"In a nutshell yes," Raleigh said

"For myself and my team, as long as the paperwork is signed and cleared I'd jump on the opportunity... however I cannot speak for Kieran and his SAS detachment."

Raleigh watched the silent conference between the SAS operatives curiously. A couple furtive glances were cast in his direction and another few were cast in the direction of Sims. As he was working on his psychology degree before the war he found the interaction fascinating, but he really needed an answer as the transporter was waiting for them.

"Well sir, we are agreed that coming with you on a TDY from Centric Guard is well within our local control powers." Kieran said, "Our only question is…"

"Colonel Brembo and Sergeant Nance are included in the TDY transfer," Raleigh said, "Provided of course that they're willing to come,"

"I think a little TDY would be nice sir," Nance said

"I agree wholeheartedly," Brembo said

"Then it's decided?" he asked

"I would say so," Sims replied

"Good," Raleigh said, "We can board the jeeps here and return to the airfield then. I have taken the liberty of having my adjunct pack your belongings for you. My armory sergeant has collected all of the equipment from your weapons locker and loaded it aboard my transporter."

"Ah…" Sims said, blushing slightly,

"Don't worry Captain, Janet took good care of your belongings," Raleigh said

"I see," Sims said, not missing a beat, "Might I ask why the hurry?"

"Officially, because I've got a briefing with General Mather in several hours that'll require your attendance. Unofficially it's too fucking hot up here and I want to go back to Oasis."

"Oasis?" Sims blurted, "Why in the hell do you need a combat SAR team in Oasis?"

"Have you seen any of the reports coming out of Oasis recently?" Kieran asked

"Not really," I've been putting up with Centric's reports for too long to look at anyone else's mess," Sims said

"Well, you'll find out when we get to Oasis then." Raleigh replied

"So I will," she said tiredly.

General Knute stood on the flight line and watched as Raleigh led his borrowed unit to the waiting transport aircraft. She was tempted to interrupt them, and drag out their departure to share with them a portion of the frustration and suffering they had inflicted on her. Near as she could figure, at least half of the mountain of paper sitting in her inbox was due to them, and that was only the evening delivery from the previous day. She was cognizant of the fact that most of it was routine paperwork for a unit in their situation, and that there was a particularly gruesome accounting of the death of a Zeon general contained within said pile. However, she took offense to it on principle, as no other unit under her command generated as much paperwork and as much trouble as they did.

"General, thank you for loaning me the Sandhogs," Raleigh said

"Of course," Knute said with a plastic smile, "I am sorry to see them go, but given your situation I think that you will have more need of them than I will,"

"If only that weren't so true," Raleigh said, "Now if you'll excuse me I must be off,"

"Yes of course,"

"Thank you,"

The slamming of the wheels jerked the exhausted men and women of the Sandhogs company awake. Raleigh was surprised that they had even managed to sleep through the violent NOE flight, but he figured given the duration of their last mission, they would probably be able to sleep just about anywhere. He snorted humorlessly at the spate of curses as the pilots engaged the thrust reversers and threw their unsuspecting passengers forward against their wasn't surprised at all with the way they all stood in good order, collecting their rifles from the storage racks next to their seats and queued silently at the exit ramp. He was not surprised at all when as one, they all fished out various styles of sunglasses as the ground crew opened the hatch.

"Welcome to Oasis," Raleigh said, "Ensign Janet Herns here will be your guide,"

"If you'll come with me, we'll get you to your quarters," Herns said with a polite smile

"Thank you lieutenant," Sims said tiredly

"The transfer paperwork is filled out already, and just needs your signatures Captain, but we'll deal with that once you've had some downtime. I'll send Ensign Herns around with the paperwork around lunchtime tomorrow."

"Thank you sir," Sims said as she lead herself carefully down the cargo ramp and climbed into the waiting transport.

"My god are they ever a sorry looking bunch," Raleigh's XO, Major Van Leo said

"I caught them on the tail end of an operation up there at Centric. I expect that once they've had time to clean up, rest and eat something other than MREs they'll look a lot better." Raleigh said

"Those SAS bastards.... are they friggin human?" Leo asked as the SAS members proceeded to jog after the full jeep.

"I'm not entirely sure of the answer to that one..." Raleigh said with a sigh, "Come on, we've gotta work out our next set of operations."

"Yes sir," Leo said

Sims leaned back against the wall of her shower and looked at the pool of dirty water forming around her feet. She lifted one of her feet to allow the dirty water to flow out from the bottom of the shower, and stood directly under the stream of water pouring down form the ceiling mounted nozzle. Every time she ran her hands through her hair, more dirt seemed to wash out, leaving her standing in another pool of dirty water. She didn't react at all as Kieran slid the shower curtain aside and stepped in quietly behind her.

"You know... I think I'm going to cut my hair," She said as she leaned against Kieran's chest

"I've been telling you to do that for ages," Kieran said with a smile as he ran a hand through her hair, "You don't need to do anything drastic though,"

"I wasn't planning on anything crazy" She said, "Just shortening it a bit,"

"That's fine by me," he said, "Just don't go out and get yourself a buzz as that would look awful on you," Kieran said

"But it would be so practical,"

"Sure, but think how you you'd look with a buzz cut?

"Kinda goofy," Sims conceded

"Indeed,"

Colonel Raleigh watched as the members of Sandhogs Company shuffled into his office. It was painfully obvious that they were all very stiff and not a single one of them truly wanted to be awake at the moment, but they didn't have much of a choice in the matter. In fact, given the situation, they were going to be able to wreak bloody vengeance on the people that had dragged them out of their semi-comfortable beds and back into the brutal realities of a modern war. They were all in standard tan coveralls instead of combat gear because he hadn't told them to kit up, but from the expressions of the SAS members at least the four of them had figured out why they had been awakened.

"Listen... first off I'd like to apologize for awakening you at this hour, it's damn early and given the choice I'd love to be back in my quarters asleep too. However the Zeeks have made that decision –as they often do in your line of work- for the both of us and we'll just need to get on with the business at hand."

"I take it the business at hand is a rescue operation?" Sims asked, stifling a yawn

"Not quite yet, but it could well become one that'll require your... special talents." Raleigh said

"All due respect sir, that doesn't help much," Jan said tiredly

"As his information is more current, I'll hand the briefing over to Major Leo."

"Good morning," Leo said as he flipped on the briefing room's display, "roughly 30 minutes ago, at 0130 hours, the Zeeks began shelling our forward lines in preparation for a push on the city. In and of its self this is nothing new and probably not something worth waking you up for.

However, within the range of their shells and long-range anti-aircraft weapons is one of the City's major civilian hospitals. We all know that international law and any number of treaties prohibit attacking civilian or military hospitals. However this is the Zeeks we're dealing with here. As of fifteen minutes ago, the hospital has begun evacuating its most critical patients, using military casvac helicopters and tilt-rotors.

Our concern is that one of those casvac assets may get damaged and be forced into an emergency landing, or even worse shot down. We and the Zeeks have been trading the university grounds and the hospital within for two weeks now.

The hospital its self has escaped major damage, but its getting too close for their –that is the hospital's senior staff's- comfort. We have been slowly working on a ground evac for the less severely injured patients, but for some of them we feel that it will simply be too long if we try a ground evac. That's why we're going with the air option."

"And you want us on standby in the event one of those casvac birds goes down?"

"Exactly," Leo said, "And, we want you out there because we are concerned that the Zeeks may attempt an airmobile operation on the hospital to tie us down into defending it."

"That's..." Tinkler said

"Fucking bullshit, but they'll do it anyhow." Brezhnev said, "They see it as a total war, and civilian casualties don't mean a damn thing to those bastards."

"Exactly," Major Leo replied.

"What a night," Sims said with a sigh, "Alright Sandhogs back to the barracks, kit out with rescue gear. Load up on extra water and first aid supplies, but don't' short yourself on ammo or overload yourself."

Lieutenant Fin McGregor cringed as a blood red stream of 75mm anti-air tracers ripped through the air next to her Peregrine assault transport helicopter. She immediately dumped off power and allowed her helicopter to drop below the roofline and just as it seemed the helicopter was about to strike the ground, she cranked on the power again and leveled off just 14 feet above the streets of Oasis. She carefully built on as much speed as she could, thundering along the streets towards the Oasis University Hospital grounds. As she approached an intersection that would force her to climb sharply and get above the roofline again, she cranked hard on the throttle and pulled up hard on the collective, hurtling the helicopter upwards.

"Oasis Control, this is Lieutenant McGregor in Wolf 22, requesting vector to Casvac pad," McGregor

"Wolf 22, this is Oasis Control. Casvac landing sequence is full; you're slot 1 in the traffic pattern and cleared to enter the number 1 holding pattern. Come right to new course 1-9-0 and enter the pattern at FL-3" The traffic control officer in Oasis' Air Traffic Control center replied

"Oasis Control, Wolf 22 copies, coming right to new course 190 and climbing to FL-3 to enter the number 1 holding pattern," Fin replied, "Falcon 33 requests permission to deviate from ordered course if we take fire,"

"Roger that Wolf 22," Oasis Control replied, "If you come under fire, call in on the guard and let us know you're under fire and we'll clear the Zone."

"Roger that Oasis Control," McGregor said as she lifted up her helmet mounted NVGs to survey the sky around her aircraft with her eyes.

_'Perfect fucking conditions for the Zeek's AA Gunners,' _McGregor thought to herself as she scanned the crystal clear night air and directed a curse at the extremely bright moonlight that glinted off of her helicopter.

Brembo surveyed the maintenance logs of the heavily modified Peregrine Casvac helicopter he was leaning against. He whistled tunelessly as he flipped through the pages, learning his aircraft's history before he entrusted lives to her.

"So, how's she looking sir?" Nance asked as he strolled casually into the hanger

"Well, if they ask us up tonight there's no way on hell we're going anywhere. At least not until we've had a couple hours of flight time to fly her around,"

"So I see," Nance said as he examined the modifications to the helicopter

"Started life as a standard AH-885…"

"Yeah, but she sure isn't hell one now…" Nance said as he surveyed the helicopter

The AH-885 Peregrine's design role was similar to that of the late 20th century/ early 21st century Sikorsky H-60 series of helicopter and consequentially looked rather similar. The designers had decided that the H-60's basic airframe and design could benefit from streamlining and lightening that modern alloys and construction techniques afforded them and streamlined the aircraft. Each helicopter was equipped with a pair of pintle mounts between the cockpit and the cargo-bay doors, permitting the mounting of several different weapons. They were also capable of being equipped with stub-wings which could mount various weapons systems, from 7.62mm GPMGs all the way to anti-mobile suit guided missiles. The helicopters also mounted four IR/laser targeting protection units, one on top of the either engine, one on the top of the tail boom and one on the bottom of the helicopter's nose.

Brembo and Nance's Peregrine's similarity to the standard AH-885 ended there however. Mounted on the underside of their aircraft's nose, where the foot-well window would have been, was a sensor pod equipped with a thermal camera, a daylight camera and a multi-mode laser targeting system. Two rescue winches were mounted above the cargo doors and recessed into special flarings to maintain the helicopter's sleek profile. When they were needed, the rescue winches would extend on hydraulic arms and lock into place and then slot back into their flarings to return the aircraft to its regular flight profile. To make up for the loss of the stub wings and their associated weapons capability necessitated by the rescue winches, the designers thoughtfully mounted a 35mm chain gun under the helicopter's nose and gave it a nearly 360 degree field of fire. To make up for the lost range from the extra fuel tanks that could be mounted on the stub wings, the nameless engineers and designers that had built Brembo's helicopter had also included an improved drive-train that was supposed to give the helicopter better performance and greater range.

"Well Nance I think its time we turned in," Brembo said as he tucked the log book into its slot behind his seat on the cockpit bulkhead "But when Oasis' flight ops opens in the morning, we're filing a check-out flight's plan with them and putting this baby through her paces."

"Sounds like a plan to me sir, think they'll open the range for us?"

"I don't see why not," Brembo opined as he hit the switch to shut off the hanger's internal lighting.

Fin shouted curses as the ant-air gun battery that had forced her below the roofline sighted her and began firing in her direction. The maneuver had thrown the gunner's aim off, and his rounds were chewing up the air behind Fin's Peregrine, but they were getting closer. To force another miss, she slammed hard on her petals and let her starboard side gunner unleash his Gatling gun at the anti-air emplacement. The Peregrine's twin 12mm Gatling guns weren't meant to take on armored vehicles and most of them pinged off of the gun's armored turret. The gunner was going for the exposed sighting arrays on the roof of the turret but he wasn't getting close enough to do much to it. The anti-air gunners continued firing too, and soon the lethal rounds were punching through the thinly armored passenger compartment. One round ricocheted off of a longeron and up into the roof of the passenger compartment where it found the engine control cable run. The round ripped through the engine control cable run like it was paper, silencing the starboard engine. The gunner ran out of ammo, and his reload crews sprung into action, beginning a race between them and Fin.

Fin immediately gave control of the aircraft to her co-pilot while she took the starboard engine's power control level to idle and cut off the fuel and hydraulic pumps, hoping to stave off any fuel and hydraulic leaks that the hit might have caused. With that done, she took the controls back and tried to fight her helicopter back into a stable flight routine, but during all that time the Zeek anti-air emplacement had managed to reload their auto cannons and started firing at her aircraft. She dumped the collective and dumped throttle to drop below the line of fire. This only served to move the point of impact from the rear cabin upward, tearing through control cable runs, fuel lines, hydraulic lines and electrical runs. With that much damage to the aircraft's alternate controls, Fin was not able to control the steep dive she had put the helicopter into. She tried to slip the helo to its backup controls but the hydraulic valves stuck, causing her helicopter to loose hydraulic pressure all together. Without hydraulic pressure, the controls went mushy in her hands.

"Brace for Impact!" Fin called over the intercom as the tail boom bounced off of a communications tower, killing the tail rotor. Without a tail rotor, Fin had lost her last measures of control over the helicopter. The helicopter spun wildly around before it fell onto a roof top, where it perched precariously until the walls of the building it had landed on began to crumble. The section of roof the Peregrine had landed on collapsed, causing the stricken Peregrine to pitch forwards. The aircraft slammed nose first into the ground, with enough force to cause the cockpit to collapse. As the cockpit collapsed around its hapless occupants, the helicopter twisted to the right until the rotor blades dug into the soft asphalt. The port engine, still at full power, caused the helicopter to twist around until it flipped onto its roof. The helicopter twisted until it stopped with what was left of its aft end and tail-boom embedded in a storefront and the wreckage of its nose crushed in-between some parked cars.

Colonel Raleigh rolled over and snatched his com unit off of its charging cradle to stop the device's incessant, ear piercing, blood curdling, dead waking racket. "Colonel Raleigh here, what is it?" Raleigh growled.

"Sir this is Oasis Central coms, sorry to wake you. Oasis Control reports they've lost a bird en-route to the Hospital!" A coms officer reported from the Oasis Garrison HQ's command center.

"Bloody hell," Raleigh muttered, "Shake Captain Sims and the Sandhogs loose, I'll be down to Central in five."

"Yes sir!" The coms officer replied as he turned to his coms suite

Sims cringed as the pager on her tactical belt began its obnoxious screeching. She yawned and lifted her head from its comfortable perch on one of Kieran's thighs, and swatted the acknowledge switch to shut the obnoxious device up. She pulled herself upright with a tug on Kieran's tac-vest to make sure he was awake.

"Let's go people," She said, punctuating her statement with a yawn which only drew irate barks of laughter from the assembled soldiers

"Yeah," Brezhnev muttered as Sims hauled herself to her feet unsteadily, "Good morning to you sleepyhead,"

"God do I need a coffee," Kieran said as he fished a cigar out of his tac-vest

"Not now," Sims said, snatching the cigar out of his hand and shoving it into her own tac-vest.

"At least put it in its case!" Kieran objected as he fished the case out of his tac-vest

"Oh get over it you whiny bastard I've seen you smoke those damn things in..."

"Because I was smoking them at the time, not waiting for them to be needed," Kieran said as he began fishing around in her tac-vest's pockets for the cigar

"Watch what you're grabbing there you pervert!" Sims hissed

"Oh stow it," Kieran said, not watching what he was grabbing at all

"All due respect Cap'n, but could ya save to foreplay for later?" Brezhnev asked as Raleigh walked into their combined ready room and briefing room

"Good morning Sandhogs," Raleigh said, "As Sergeant Brezhnev said, save the foreplay for later captain, I'm sure you'll be able to find time for it then."

"Um... yes sir," Sims said, not wanting to contradict a colonel

"Well, moving right along then," Raleigh continued as he passed out map modules for everyone's tactical computers," As I'm sure you've figured out, something's gone wrong with the evac op. One of our helicopters has gone down in the city. It was hit by Zeon a long range triple-A battery operating on the Zeon front lines. This is the latest recon-drone footage of the crash site. As you can see the aircraft in question is an AH-885 Peregrine assault helicopter. From the reports we currently have the helicopter, call sign Wolf 22, got tangled up with a Zeek 23mm battery..."

"23mm isn't necessarily long ranged sir," Brembo pointed out, "They could well be operating near by the crash site,"

"They could be, but we scanned the area with recon-drones and didn't see any signs of any triple-A batteries. As far as we can tell, it was probably a saboted 75mm battery operating in –or just behind, the Zeek's FEBA."

"That would make more sense," Brembo said, "Anyhow it's of little import now that this has happened,"

"Right," Raleigh said as he toggled to grainy surveillance drone footage, "As you can see here, Wolf 22 landed on its nose and has now embedded its self in a store and a group of parked cars. This road is going to be a very critical supply transit route so we need the crew rescued and the wreck cleared ASAP. Given the danger of moving you in air-mobile right now, we're going to send you in with a little convoy of sorts.

Captain Sims, you'll have one of my guntanks that's been fitted-out as an armored recovery vehicle, a pair of Type 74 Hover Truck ambulances and a regular Type 74 to move yourselves in. I'd love to send you in with some heavy armor, or at least a unit of mechanized infantry but that is as much as I can spare for the moment and I do hope that you won't wind up needing more."

"We'll have to make do with what we have." Sims said, "We are grateful for the ARV and the regular Type 74 though,"

"I thought you might be," Raleigh said, "Barring any further questions or comments, you're dismissed,"

"Let's get mobile here people," Sims said

Lieutenant Fin struggled against her harness, trying to get herself free so that she could see to the crew of her helicopter. Her co-pilot, warrant officer Fall was dead, or nearly so based on the pool of blood growing on what used to be the roof of the cockpit. She had tried to call to her crew in the rear of the helicopter, but when she inhaled more than a tiny breath she was greeted with a blinding wave of pain. She tried once more for the release ring, but as she pulled on it, the pin sheared off inside the emergency release mechanism. She worked futile at the mechanism's main release but when she twisted the ring to the release position nothing happened. She tried to reach out and grab the emergency restraint cutter that was placed along the overhead engine control console, but the way the cockpit had twisted when she crashed put it beyond her reach. She jerked back against her seat when a hand reached in through the shattered windshield and ripped the cutter out of its brackets.

"Looking for this?" The owner of the hand asked acidly

"Please, hand the thing to me," Fin asked as she reached out to try and grab it.

"Oops," The voice said as he dropped the cutter

"Come on..." Fin said softly as she struggled to reach the cutter, but it was still beyond her reach, "I don't want to die in this hell hole..."

"Too bad," the voice said as Fin felt the cold steel of a rifle muzzle against her forehead, "Any last words,"

"Fuck you!" Fin hissed with her last sparks of defiant energy

"Hardly an original statement,"

"Hardly an original situation," A second voice said

"What the..." The owner of the voice started to say before the loud crack of an FN-57 firing cut him off.

"Christ... this one is a goner," Another voice muttered from the other side of the cockpit

"Check him for a pulse anyhow," A third voice ordered angrily

"Holy hell; he's got one," The owner of the other voice said, "Doc, we're gonna need you over here!"

"I'm on my way," Evans replied as he scrambled onto the roof of a parked car, "Mick, get a c-spine on the young lady, before you try anything"

"You got it doc," Kieran replied "Gaz, pass one over would ya?"

"Here," Gaz said as he passed the requested device across the cockpit.

"How the hell are we going to get her out of here?" Soap asked

"Not sure yet..." Kieran replied

"You hurt anywhere Leftenant?" Gaz asked

"Can't breathe well," She said

"Does it hurt?" Gaz asked

"Badly" She replied

"How about your shoulders or your head?" Gaz asked

"It feels like my head is going to explode" Fin said hoarsely,"

"Ok Leftenant," Gaz said as he waived for a quick conference out of earshot, "We'll see what we can do for you,"

"Triage time boys," Evans said darkly, "I pick the pilot,"

"She'll keep for a little while," Gaz said, "What are we looking at with the co-pilot?"

"His legs are crushed, and he's pinned in pretty good," Evans said, "He's shocky, and he's lost a lot of blood. I think we can give him a red tag and her a yellow tag,"

"I concur," Gas said

"How are we going to get him out?" Brezhnev asked as he surveyed the wreckage through the shattered wind-screens.

"We've got two options," Kieran said as he lit his cigar, "dismantle the cockpit or dismantle him. The question is, which is he more likely to survive?"

"His legs are more than likely going to need to be amputated anyhow," Gaz said

"So we do it here in the field?" Sims said as she joined the group

"Not the best option, but its our only one," Evans said bleakly, "That being the case, I think we need to get her out first. We're going to need the room,"

"And she probably won't take well to the operation either," Sims said

"I doubt she will," Evans concurred, "Also, we're going to need to get as much access to him as possible... is there any way you can pull the cockpit from those cars?"

"Gaz, can you take the tail boom off with a line charge?"

"Yeah, I can take it off, but what are you going to pull it with?"

"we can secure a set of pulleys to something inside the building that the tail is stuck in, pass the hauling lines through them and to the aft lift points and pull it out from the cars." Kieran said as he figured the angles out in his mind

"I want to get her out of there before we try that, as that could puncture a lung or worse," Evans said

"How do you plan on that one?" Sims asked

"She's got crushed ribs and possible whiplash injuries so we can't just drop her out of the damn thing..."

"If we could roll the helicopter over and haul her out that way that'd be easiest," Gaz said

"That's even worse than leaving her in it when we try and drag it out..."

"I know," Gaz said, "We'll have to gently hold her and cut her free from the straps. I figure that if we get Soap and Sims in there, the two of them can hold her by her flight suit, while Kieran cuts the straps and then slowly guide her out of the seat. Once we have her on the roof of the cockpit, we can strap her to a carry board and get her into the Medivac,"

"I've got a better idea," McKnight said, "We'll suspend her seat from the frame with quick draws and separate the chair from the mount frame..."

"Use another pair of quick draws to secure hauling lines to the chair and pass'em through a pair of blocks suspended from one of the ARV's booms?" Brezhnev finished

"Yeah... Figure a third line through a block on the opposite side of the cockpit and tied off to one of the pad eyes on the glacis plate of the ARV to control swing,"

"We'll have to haul up on her and pay out the swing line at the same time..."

"And it's going to take all four of us just to hold that thing up..."

"I can do the swing line, can't I?" Sims asked

"Dunno if you're strong enough for it..."

"I am!" Sims squeaked.

"Fine then... that's decided, let's do this!" Kieran ordered

"What about perimeter security," Sims asked, "Who'll be in charge of that?"

"Leave Jan in charge of it," Kieran said, we need to get her out of the damn bird, because the faster we get her out the faster we can get him out as well."

Jan muttered a particularly harsh oath as he caught sight of a Zeon infantry patrol headed for him. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and clicked off the safety slowly to make sure that the audible click wasn't heard by the advancing soldiers. Jan double clicked his radio transmit key, causing his coms code to flash across the team's helmet mounted displays in the pre-arranged hostile action alert.

Sims signaled to Kieran, and dashed quietly off to the corner across from Jan's position to provide backup fire. While she was doing that, Kieran pointed to the driver of the Armored Recovery Vehicle and drew his hand across his throat in the cut gesture to tell him to kill the engines. The command was passed to the two Hover Truck operators as well, and the block grew quieter as the diesel-electric drive units of the ARV and Hover Trucks were switched off.

Sergeant Breakers clicked his own transmit switch twice and silently clicked off his own rifle's safety. He also clicked his grenade launchers safety and fished out a high explosive breaching shell. He glanced at the advancing Zeon troops and pulled his leatherman off of his tac-gear and carefully pried the explosive round off of the propellant shell. He pulled the detonator unit out of the shell's body. Once he had the detonator in his hand, Breakers flipped it over to check the serial number. Fortunately for his plan, the shell he was working with had a centrifugal range safety, or 'spin safety'.

The spin safety was a small pendulum that was activated by the firing impulse of the grenade launcher. The pendulum spun around a geared shaft until it made contact with the activation switch. The activation switch then primed the actual impact-sensitive detonator. Breakers spun the range safety to zero and pressed the detonator back into its well inside the explosive charge and then set the explosive charge onto the casing. He set the securing ring back in and hastily crimped it back into place and fed the projectile into his launcher.

With that done, he glanced back up through the window that he was taking cover in. As he had predicted, the Zeek troops were practically on top of him, but with his nasty little surprise headed their way it wouldn't matter much. He checked to make damn sure that his safety was off and rolled up into firing position. He pulled the trigger of his rifle first to shatter the window, before pulling the trigger of his grenade launcher. He rolled back under cover and snuggled his helmet down tight to protect himself from the impending explosion. As breakers had predicted, the grenade struck one of the advancing Zeon troops in the torso. The blunt trauma of the 40mm grenade's impact was enough to kill the unfortunate Zeon soldier of its own volition. However, the combination of the soldier's body armor and the equipment on his web gear provided just enough resistance to trigger the explosive charge. The explosive charge had been intended to breach walls and doors, and the Zeon soldiers stood no chance of surviving. Breakers poked his head up and scanned through the window to check for more hostiles and then clicked his transmit switch three times to signal the all clear.

McKnight cringed at the sound of Breakers grenade detonating and muttered another curse as he struggled with Lieutenant Fin's seat. He was beginning to loose his patience with the accursed object when Fin let out a surprised yelp as her chair finally did exactly what he wanted it to do. With her seat suspended by the four quick draws that he had anchored to both the seat's anchors on the floor of the cockpit and the mount point's shock absorption system's anchors.

With her suspended from the quick draws, he tied a trio of lines to the seat's shock absorption frame and tossed two of them out to Brezhnev. Brezhnev took the two lines he had been passed and passed them through a pair of blocks suspended from the Guntank ARV's left winch arm. Kieran took the third line, passed it through a block secured to the opposite side of the cockpit and then tossed it out to Brezhnev. Brezhnev took the third line and tied it off to the central pad eye on the ARV's glacis plate. With that done, Brezhnev tossed one line to Gaz and the other to Soap as McKnight carefully scrambled free of the cockpit. With that done, Brezhnev waived for the driver of the Guntank ARV to approach slowly as Gaz and Soap simultaneously took the slack out of their hauling lines. As the Guntank ARV reached the correct position, Brezhnev signaled for the driver to stop.

"Ok, boom up and line out simultaneously, try to keep that hook exactly where it is!" McKnight ordered as he looked nervously around.

"Is something bugging you McKnight?" Sims asked his wary attitude and the skittish behavior of the SAS team setting her dangerously on edge too.

"Yeah... don't like the noise level... I can't hear the damn firing."

"That's what we've got Jan for isn't it?" Sims replied, trying and failing to lighten the mood with humor.

McKnight didn't bother with a verbal reply to her question as the ARV's crane operator finished the requested operation. He examined the situation once more and shook his head and walked irately for the front of the helicopter. McKnight pulled another block and a quick draw off of his web gear. He secured one of the quick draw's two carabineers to a pad eye on the glacis plate and clipped the other to the block. He split the block in half and placed Gaz's hauling line into the block before snapping it closed again. He repeated the task on the second line and tailed onto Gaz's hauling line, while Brezhnev tailed onto Soap's hauling line.

"Ok boys hold fast!" Kieran shouted

"Moving in!" Sims called as she slithered lithely into the cockpit and grasped the quick release for Fin's chair.

"Two! Six!" Kieran called

"Heave!" the SAS operators called in unison as they heaved against the hauling lines to take the weight off of the quick draws that had been attached to the chair's mount.

"Hit the release!" Kieran ordered

"Released!" Sims replied over the radio as she pulled the quick release. The quick release freed the chair from its shock release frame, which neatly retracted its self into its base on what was the floor of the cockpit and transferred the weight onto the hauling lines. As per Kieran's plan, Fin's chair moved only slightly, as the weight transferred from the quick draws to the hauling lines. Sims clambered back out of the cockpit, being careful not to catch herself on any of the lines and untied the final hauling line.

Sims struggled against the combined weight of Fin and her chair, trying to keep her from swinging about violently as Kieran, Gaz, Soap and Brezhnev heaved on the hauling lines to keep her chair from striking the ground before they were ready for it to. With her chair suspended upside down again, but outside the cockpit this time, the operator of the ARV slowly paid out his winch line, lowering the chair gently as he could. Once the headrest of the chair was in contact with the ground, the SAS operators gently paid out their hauling lines until Fin's chair was solidly on the ground. While Doc Evans moved in to deal with Fin's wounds, the members of the SAS quickly broke down their equipment and moved in to examine the wreckage of the cockpit.

"This is going to be a pain in the ass..." Kieran muttered

"I think we've got bigger problems!" Brezhnev shouted just before a burst from a Zeon rifleman tore through the cockpit's wreckage

"Fuck it all!" Kieran hissed acidly

"Total FUBAR!" Gaz muttered

"Where's our fucking perimeter?" Soap hissed into the radio as they all scattered to avoid becoming a massed target

"We're all a little tied up right now!" Jan snapped as the sound of a 60mm pack cannon firing reached their ears. Seconds later the 60mm high explosive shell exploded against the wall of a building just above the Peregrine's wreckage

"Somebody got eyes on that pack cannon?" Kieran shouted

"I've got eyes on it, but no shot!" Tinkler said

"Designate the damn thing on the map and I'll sort the son of a bitch out," Kieran said

"Worry about the pack cannon later on... we've got wounded to clear!" Sims shouted as another 60mm shell exploded over their heads.

"Fuck this..." Kieran muttered

"Get her inside the ambulance, I'll work on her there... the rest of the crew'll be black tagged by the time we get the area secure enough to work on'em!" Evans shouted as a third 60mm shell bounced off of the Peregrine's hull and exploded in the air above their heads.

"Damn it all there are two of the bastards!" Kieran hissed acidly as a 60mm pack canon shell exploded against the ARV's upper torso. The ARV's winch operator swiveled his only weapon, a small 7.62mm GPMG, and unleashed a long burst in the direction that the 60mm shell had come from while the ARV's driver began to try and clear the line of fire.

"Get the armor out of here; it's too god damn easy to kill in these tight quarters!" Sims ordered

"But..." Evans started to reply as he and the ambulance crew worked to get Fin, still attached to her pilot's seat into the back of the ambulance

"No buts doc, you deal with her, we'll deal with this mess. Once we call the all clear you can come back in and we'll resume recovery operations." Sims ordered over the flat crack of a pack cannon being fired near by. "Sparky, get a contact report off to Central and see what kind of support Raleigh can dredge up for us!"

"Roger that," Rapp replied as he rolled under cover and began dialing in the correct frequencies.

"Central, this is Sandhog long-wave you on the net?"

"Go Sandhog Long-wave, this is Central."

"Central, Sandhog Long-wave reports heavy contact with hostile light forces." Rapp's statement was punctuated by another 60mm pack cannon's shell detonating.

"Roger that Sandhog Long-wave. Break contact, and clear the area for me please. We'll be moving combat troops in to mop-up the Zeeks." Raleigh ordered

"Roger that Central, break contact and clear the area." Rapp replied as he brought his rifle to his shoulder and unleashed a burst in the direction of a Zeon solider. Rapp hadn't exactly bothered to aim the burst, but it served its purpose and drove the offending Zeon trooper behind cover. Rapp fished a fragmentation grenade out of his webbing and pitched in the general direction of the Zeek Trooper before diving behind cover himself.

"What're our orders Rapp?" Sims called

"We're to break contact and withdraw ma'am!" Rapp reported as he slid to a stop next to her.

Sergeant Terry McCall cringed as a burst of Zeon rifle fire ripped at the forward armor of his Type 74 Hover Truck Ambulance. Even the Zeek's heavy 9mm battle rifles wouldn't have a prayer of breaching his armor, but they could get lucky and take out one of his driving lamps -or even worse penetrate the armor over his view slits. He glanced away from the all too small view slit long enough for a quick check of his sat-nav display and slid the hover truck through a fast corner. Shrieks of pain and shouts of protest reached his ears, but he blocked them out as the much heavier sound of a series of pack cannons firing reached his ears, just before a wave of high explosive projectiles exploded all about the hover truck. His gunner, manning the 30mm Gatling gun, trained his heavy mount to reply, but was driven under the gunner's shield by a storm of small arms fire before he could get it around all the way.

"Brace for it boys this is gonna hurt!" McCall bellowed just before a Zeon AT soldier launched on him


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

* * *

Captain Sims dashed through the wreckage field around the trashed hover truck, trying to get to a safe position before the heavy machine gun that had been firing at the hover truck's beleaguered crew for several minutes got a solid bead on her. The air around the hover truck was filled with the stench of kerosene, and the last thing Sims wanted to do was to have to fire her weapon, lest it set off the volatile fuel air mixture. She skidded to a halt behind the wreckage of the hover truck and banged on the personnel hatch.

"You alright in there Doc?" She shouted as the machine gunner fired at what was left of the Hover Truck's front end

"Driver's gone, gunner is down hard and the friggin hatch is jammed bad!" Doctor Evans shouted back from inside.

"How about the side hatch" Kieran shouted as he slid to a stop next to Sims "Is it operable?"

"Not a chance in hell," Evans said, "When we were hit, the damn turret ring collapsed and the turret is now stuck in the hatchway,"

"Better and fucking better," Sims hissed, "Looks like we're going to have to heavy rescue your ass out of this mess,"

"Yeah, but not until we get that damn machine gun nest taken care of!" Jan replied across the coms net as a burst of machine gun fire ripped through the pile of wreckage he had taken cover behind

"Tinkerbelle, how many rounds do you have left for that damn AT-4?" Brezhnev asked

"I've got one HEAT, one HEDP and a NE round left," Corporal Tinkler replied

"You have a NE Round?" Kieran asked, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

"Well yes…"

"Good…" Kieran said as his mind worked through a potential plan. Before he could finish working out his plan however, a heavy metallic clank brought his train of thought to a screeching halt.

"What in the hell was that?" Sims asked

"Zeek fucker with one of their big 30mm rifles,"

"Son of a bitch…"

"Something along the lines of what I was thinking," Kieran muttered as the Zeek sniper took another shot at the downed vehicle

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Brezhnev asked

"We're going to have to take him out _well _before we deal with that damn machine gun. Given the trajectories of the shots and the terminal effects, I'd guess he's between two and two and a half miles away, firing solid core shot. Longer range than anything I've got on me. However that rifle weighs a bitch and takes at least four guys to move. And they usually have to bolt the damn things down to control recoil so it's not like it's going anywhere anytime soon." Kieran said, "We'll have a problem if it's more than just the rifle's crew we're going to have to deal with, but I expect it'll only be the guys running the rifle and in that case we only have two wild cards to deal with, because at least two of them are required to work the rifle."

"How are you planning on taking it out?"

"There are only four or five buildings that have an appropriate line of sight within my estimated range for this joker," Kieran said, highlighting the aforementioned buildings on their HUDs as the aforementioned sniper fired another shot into the Hover Truck's wreckage, "I'll run out on counter-sniper detail on my own. The rest of you work out how to deal with that damn MG nest."

"You sure about this Mick?" Brezhnev asked

"I'm fine Brezhnev," Kieran replied, "Tango Uniform!"

"Roger that," Brezhnev replied, "Tango Uniform it is!,"

With that, Kieran pitched a pair of smoke grenades around the corner of the Hover Truck and sprinted away from it in a hail of machine gun and 30mm fire. He skidded underneath the stone counter in a building's reception area. Several rounds pinged off of the heavy stone, kicking chunks into the air around his hiding position. He snatched his tactical computer off of his belt and switched it from team to solo mode and activated the counter-sniper mode for the built in sensory equipment.

Using his combat computer's counter-sniper mode, he began to do a more thorough plotting of the sniper's probable location. Kieran's original estimate of five buildings was close enough to accurate, but the buildings themselves were not the ones Kieran had told Sims he was going to check out. He pulled his heavy DSR-1 .338 Lapua caliber rifle off of his back and chambered a round, to make sure it was ready to fire, and then returned it to his back. He popped the regular scope off of his rifle and replaced it carefully with his specialized counter-sniper scope. With that done, he snapped the low-light image enhancer and glare reduction modules onto the scope and checked the zero of the scope against the infrared laser mounted along his rifle's barrel. Both Zeroed out perfectly at 500 meters and again at 750. With that done he snapped the lowlight image intensifier module onto his helmet and a second battery into his combat computer's power pack to take up the extra load from his modified load out.

With all of his kitting out done Kieran broke from his position of cover, hoping to draw the fire of either the sniper or the machine gun nest so that he could take one or the other out. Unfortunately, what he got instead was a group of Zeon line infantry firing at him. He skidded to a halt behind a column and pulled a grenade off of his web gear. With the grenade in his left hand and his rifle in his right, Kieran pitched the grenade to his left and sprung around to the right in a classic grenade fake. The fragmentation grenade's explosion sent the soldiers diving right, and straight into Kieran's line of fire. Taking full advantage of the heavy weight armor piercing rounds his rifle fired, Kieran dumped half a magazine into the platoon as they ran for cover, spurred on by the grenade's explosion.

With them dispatched, Kieran made ready to move out again, when a pair of Zeon infantry in powered battle armor came around the corner. The Zeon powered armor was simply a powered exoskeleton that allowed its operator to carry more weight and heavier armor than a normal soldier, but still move with the same speed and efficiency. The downside for the operators was that their operational time was generally limited by the amount of power the small capacitor banks they carried around was able to provide. Usually they were only employed in raids or the initial phases of an assault, because they could only provide about three hours of operational time per capacitor bank, and each capacitor bank weighed in at just over 70 pounds, which made them rather hard to hump about for the normal infantry assigned to work with them.

Knowing that his DMR didn't have the punch to down the power armor equipped infantry Kieran looked around for cover to work out a plan for taking out the Powered Infantry. Kieran knew that his DSR-1 and its heavy .338 Lapua's SLAP rounds would be more than up to the job, if he could only take the time between shots to work the things bolt action. Kieran slid the DMR onto his back and unslung the heavy DSR. Kieran knew that the grenade fake wouldn't work on the two power armors' operators, so he opted for a simple shoot out with them. He knew that they both fielded Zeon 14.7mm heavy machine guns for standard weapons. He checked his heart rate, brought his rifle up to his shoulder and sprung around the corner.

The action caught both power armor pilots off guard, giving Kieran enough time to get his first shot right. The massive high velocity round exploded out from the muzzle break, the two petals of the sub caliber dart's sabot separating with enough velocity to be lethal in their own right. The light weight tungsten sub-caliber penetrator dart reached its maximum velocity just inches from the chest of the powered armor. The entire sequence was far too fast for Kieran's target; in fact the power armor's operator had only just realized that he had actually been shot at when Kieran's shot struck home. Kieran's shot slid through the thin plate of ceramic armor that surrounded the powered armor pilot's neck, decapitating the armor's operator.

The second power armor's pilot had reacted faster than his teammate and had his machine gun up and moving into position even as Kieran fired. Knowing that to waist the time to duck back around cover would probably get him killed, Kieran was working the bolt of his rifle as quickly as he could. Before either could fire, the power armor exploded where it stood. Kieran rolled behind the column and scanned the area around him, trying to figure out what had caused the explosion. He muttered several sullen curses as the small, lithe form of one Corporal Tinkler clambered out from her firing position and slid to a halt under the same reception desk he had stopped under just moments before.

"Stay Down dumbass!" Kieran bellowed as the machine gun opened fire on her.

"I'm sorry," Tinkler whispered over the radio as a massive 30mm armor piercing projectile ripped a chunk out of the granite and marble reception desk

"Just hold position Tinkerbelle you'll be fine," Kieran replied as his combat computer's sensor net picked up on the incoming rounds.

The machine gun's position was far too easy to plot Kieran thought to himself as the computer traced the incoming fire and narrowed the location down to one building and then to one floor and finally to the exact window. With the threat localized, Kieran brought his DSR-1 to his shoulder and carefully crept around the column, hoping that the shadow he was in would hide him from the machine gunner and his spotter. Once he had a good angle of fire, Kieran sighted in on the machine gunner's forehead and fired his DSR-1 again. Kieran knew that he had been static and exposed for far too long as the Zeon sniper re-sighted and fired on him. The 30mm round tore a melon sized chunk out of the floor and peppered him with chunks of tile as he dove behind a flower pot, and scanned desperately for better cover from the 30mm rifle.

"You alright?" Tinkerbelle asked from her rather safer position

"Just fine," Kieran grunted, "That monster rifle is designed for anti-vehicle and armor work, not anti-personnel work so he'll have to be damn lucky to hit us with it."

"Ok..." Tinkerbelle said, not quite believing him as the rifle's operator shifted to fire at her instead

"Sparky! Call in some fucking air would ya? I'll send you this guy's room number. I'd love to run a proper counter-sniper detail on his ass but we don't have the time for it right now!" Kieran called over the radio as the Zeon sniper took a pot shot at him with his massive rifle. "Come on you asshole, those big bullets are expensive..." Kieran muttered, "Stop wasting 'em on something you can't see."

"Roger that, I'll see what I can dig up for ya McKnight!" Rapp replied as he changed frequencies, "Red Crown, Red Crown this is Sandhog Long, Red Crown you on the net?"

"Sandhog Long Sandhog Long, this is Red Crown, we are on the net and open for business! Standing by for tasking."

"Red Crown, Red Crown, This is Sandhog Eyeball, Stand by for tasking," Kieran replied as Rapp patched him into the net.

"Red Crown standing by Sandhog Eyeball, call 'er in."

"Red Crown Red Crown, Tasking is as follows. Current Blue position is at the north-east corner of the intersection of 80th Street North and B street, say again eight-zero north street and Bravo street. I have a Zeon anti-material rifle squad holed up in a structure roughly two miles downrange my current posit. Correction Red Crown, the target is _south_ say again _south_ my current posit, range still two mikes. How copy?"

"Sandhog Eyeball, Red Crown copies all, stand by for tasking fire support."

"Sandhog Eyeball copies, standing by for tasking call,"

"Sandhog Eyeball, Red Crown has no available air assets your area... passing control to field support guns, call sign Dragon One One."

"Red Crown Sandhog Eyeball copies all, out; Dragon One One how copy?"

"Sandhog Eyeball, this is Dragon One One copies five by five, standing by for tasking request, over.

"Dragon One One, Sandhog Eyeball; my current position is the north east corner of 80th North and B street, say again eight-zero Street North and Bravo Street. Tasking is a hostile AMR position that is two miles south of my current position."

"Sandhog Eyeball, Dragon One One copies all. Target AMR position is two miles south of 80th and B Street. Interrogative, is the target in a building over."

"Dragon One One, that is affirmative. Target is located on a mezzanine level between what appears to be the eighth and ninth floors of the target building.

"Sandhog Eyeball, Dragon One One copies; Interrogative, are there any friendly forces downrange of your current posit?"

"Dragon One One that is a negative to my knowledge. You are cleared to fire at will."

"Sandhog Eyeball, Dragon One One copies all, commencing fire mission now; all stations on this net standby for outbound heavy metal. Dragon One One clear."

"Sandhog Eyeball copies all Dragon One One, Sandhog Eyeball clear."

"Sandhog six, this is Central, say status over."

"Central, Sandhog six," Sims replied, "We've lost a truck, and are attempting to recover the occupants now. I have dispatched remaining convoy elements back to base. Will advise when rescue completed."

"Roger that Sandhog six," The coms operator replied, "Be advised Central Ops reports a hostile Calvary-Scout unit headed in your direction."

"Sandhog six copies all," Sims said, switching channels, "Guys, bust ass Central is calling in hostile Cav-Scouts!"

"Captain, we've vented the fuel tanks from in here," Evans called from inside the Hover Truck

"Good doc," McKnight replied, "Soap, rig up some cutting charges and get them the hell out of there! I've got eyes on a squad of Butt Munchers headed our way!"

"Butt Munchers?" Sims asked, knowing that Kieran would never tell her what the hell a Butt Muncher was unless she decided to ask him.

"Yeah, Butt Munchers!" Brezhnev replied as he slid to a stop in a covering position for Kieran.

"What the hell are butt Munchers?" Sims snapped angrily

"Those!" Kieran shouted excitedly as a pair of 60mm free-flight artillery rockets exploded above his position.

"Fuck!" Sims said simply as she waived Breaker and Ferot forward to provide cover for Kieran and Tinkler as they fell back around the corner.

Breaker loaded a 40mm HE grenade into his rifle and slid to a stop on his knee pads. As he approached the corner, Breakers carefully maneuvered around the corner looking for the perfect opportunity to fire. As he rounded the corner, breaker caught sight of the Zeon mini-tank that was firing on Kieran. The mini-tank had effectively no armor and his HE round impacted right above the left track's drive sprocket. The pound and a half of high explosive in his rifle-grenade was more than enough to blow the track guards that surrounded the mini-tank's drive sprocket clean off.

With the mini-tank's drive sprocket exposed, Ferot fired a HE shell at it, hoping to draw the tank's attention until Tinkler could put one of her AT-4's missiles into the obnoxious thing. Breakers had aimed at the HE sprocket itself, but his shot was blown slightly wide by the wind and slammed into the tank's hull just forward of the drive sprocket. The shell's explosive charge was sufficient to breach the hull and start an aggressive fire in the tank's engine compartment. While it wasn't what they had planned to do, it would work quite well as it forced the mini-tank's crew to abandon their vehicle.

Ferot ducked back around the corner as the second mini-tank's turret spun to address him. With no 60mm rockets loaded in the ready fire racks, the gunner switched to his equally devastating twin-mount 30mm rapid-fire cannons. The 30mm cannons fired a mix of solid shot and high explosive rounds designed specifically for urban combat. Fortunately for Ferot, the gunner could not depress his main guns far enough downward to hit him directly. The mini-tank's gunner was however able to tear through the wall all around his position. Taking the hint, Ferot dropped to his belly and crawled back from the mini-tank's point of aim as quickly as he could. As he reached the midpoint of the wall, Breakers grabbed his belt and hauled him backwards far quicker than he could ever hope to crawl.

Before the surviving mini-tank could become too much of a problem however, a sickening whistle filled the air around their position. It took them all several seconds to recognize the sound between the sounds of the heavy weapons firing all around their position, but as soon as Sims heard it clearly enough, she sent her entire team scattering for hard overhead cover. They knew that it was a friendly artillery barrage that Kieran had called in, but they still didn't want to get in the way of a rogue shell. The Zeon mini-tank provided extra incentive as it began to sweep the area where it had last spotted Breakers and Ferot with more 30mm fire.

Kieran's shake and bake barrage landed exactly on target with devastating effect. The first few shells in the flight were heavy weight high explosive shells -the shake portion of the barrage. The high explosive shells ripped the roof and most of the upper floors out of the building and several of its neighbors for good measure. While this seemed excessively cruel to the Zeon anti-material rifle's gunner and crew it was nothing compared to what was next in the barrage. The bake part of the barrage came in the form of ten air-burst fused white phosphorous shells. The Ten shells exploded in unison, showering the area around the Zeon 30mm rifle and its crew with tens of thousands of extremely hot pyrophoric White Prosperous chunks. As the white phosphors chunks interacted with the oxygen in the air, they ignited and reached temperatures hot enough to set fire to not only the targeted buildings, but cars on the street below, and surrounding buildings for blocks.

Kieran muttered a silent curse as no stray shells managed to take out the second Zeon mini-tank for them. He knew it was a very unlikely occurrence, the mini-tanks being taken out by the shells, but he had hoped it would happen none the less. The mini-tank's crew had seen what had happened to their comrades manning the anti-material rifle and were trying to score any points for their own side. It wasn't exactly fair, but in in war nothing really ever truly was fair. Kieran winced as the mini-tank's gunner caught sight of him and tried to wheel his weapons in his direction. Before he could, Tinkler unleashed one of her AT-4 Spiral missiles on the mini-tank's turret. Tinkler's AT-4 missile and its seven pound warhead was intended to brew up Zeon main battle tanks, and sever limbs from mobile suits. When it struck the Zeon mini-tank, which had about as much armor as a family sedan when it came down to it, the tank and its crew were obliterated in a hellish fireball.

Evans winced as fragments pinged off of the demolished hover truck's forward section. He knew, on an intellectual level anyhow that as long as he stayed in the hover truck's wreckage and no mobile suits got involved, that odds were he would come through without a scratch at all. He looked around the wreckage of the Hover-truck's cargo compartment, looking for any possible way of getting the doors open so they could evacuate the wounded pilot that they had been sent in to rescue, but none readily offered itself to him. He muttered a curse and sank back into his all too comfortable chair with a disgusted grunt. Doc Evans knew that here was an emergency release for the aft hatch, but the switch was near the collapsed wreckage of the hover-truck's turret and as likely as not damaged.

"Captain..." Evans asked, "Where is the emergency open for the aft hatch?"

"There are two of 'em, one near the turret -which is probably destroyed- and a second one in the aft electrical box, which is usually located in the floor near the gurney's head-end lock. If the aft electrical box isn't there than it's probably a rev-2 layout in the back, which means that you'll find the electrical box -and emergency open- behind your seat. I would check behind your seat first, because its more'n likely that you're in a Rev-2 vehicle." Sims replied as she snapped her rifle to her shoulder and ripped off a long burst at a pair of advancing Zeon infantry.

"Yeah, roger that..." Evans replied as he flipped the release catches for his seat.

Corporal Tinkler rolled behind a partially collapsed wall to get out of the line of fire from a charging group of Zeon infantry. She wanted badly to have enough downtime to pull her canteen off of her web gear and at least wash the taste of cordite out of her mouth. She knew that she was going to smell like burnt cordite for days after this battle, because the confined areas that they were fighting in caused the propellant smoke from their weapons to drift back over them. While some regarded the smell of burnt cordite as some sort of perverse badge of honor, Tinkler hated the sickly sweet smell of it and did all she could to get it off at every opportunity.

Tinkler spotted a Zeon heavy machine gun squad setting up in a window, and reached for her assault rifle. Tinkler snugged the rifle into her shoulder and snapped off a withering series of precise bursts into the window that the MG crew was setting up in. She caught the gunner's assistant in the neck as he was dropping the ammo box into the MG's ammo carrier. The gunner's assistant fell, spraying blood all over the gunner and their weapon.

Before Tinkler could adjust her aim to take out the gunner, whom she had been aiming at in the first place, the gunner brought his PDW to his shoulder and emptied its entire 30 round magazine in her direction. Tinkler wasn't sure if the gunner's idea had been to drive her back into cover or kill her, but it mattered little to the corporal as no matter what his intent was, he had succeeded in driving her into cover. She reached into her web gear and drew out her mirror rig so she could look around the corner and see what the bastard gunner was up to, but before she could he opened fire again, this time with his heavy 14.7mm machine gun. Not knowing if the shots were headed in her direction or not, Tinkler dropped to the floor and began to crawl away from the line of fire.

Breakers muttered a curse as a storm of high velocity 14.7mm shells tore through the thin wall of the building he had taken cover in. He had seen Tinkler's attempt to take out the MG nest on her own. While normally he wouldn't have minded her clipping the gunner's assistant before the gunner himself, in this instant he _really _minded that she had missed the gunner and hit his assistant. Breakers didn't know why the gunner had decided that he was a bigger threat, but that mattered little to him at the moment as the gunner swept his position with a massive storm of 14.7mm shells.

Fortunately for Breakers, the gunner's long burst caused his weapon to jam. Without his assitstant to help feed the ammo into the hungry weapon smoothly, a shell had gone into the breach cockeyed and had stuck fast in the action as the bolt slammed shut on the wrongly positioned round. Breakers felt little sympathy for the gunner as he reached into his shell carrier pouch on his web gear and pulled out a40mm HE shell and fed it into his rifle's under barrel launcher. With that done, he switched into a kneeling stance and aimed his rifle and took aim at the ceiling above the gunner's head, in an attempt to drop the ceiling on the gunner. As Breakers pulled the trigger a Zeon fireteam and the machine gunner spotted him at the same time. Both the fire team and the machine gunner opened fire on him with their various weapons, which forced Breakers into cover again and his shot to go wide. Instead of passing through the arch at the top of the window, the shell plowed into the wall just to its left. The explosion ripped the wall apart and showered the gunner with fragments of debris. Breakers stuck his head around the corner just long enough to see the gunner reeling about his position with his face in his hands and howling in pain.

The fact that the gunner had been at least disabled was enough for both Tinkler and Breakers as they began to exchange fire with the fire team that had spotted Breakers. "Breakers, fall back! I've got you covered!" Tinkler called over the com as she dropped one of the fire team's members.

"Roger, falling back under your cover; I'll take the right flank back." Breakers replied as he dropped the fire team's leader.

"Sparky, any luck raising an exfil?" Sims asked over the radio

"That's a negative Cap'n." Rapp replied tiredly, "Central is pretty tied up at the moment and the last thing they said to me is that we're on our own for now. Apparently the Zeeks have put on one hell of a push just to the north of us and they're headed down to Oasis with everything they've got. From the sounds of it, they want this city pretty damn bad, and this time they intend to get it. "

"Fucking lovely," Sims replied as she ducked behind a wall, "How secure are we guys?"

"We're about as secure as a glass box Captain," Lieutenant Jan replied with a disgusted snort, "We've got absolutely no perimeter at the moment and there are far too many Zeeks around for us to be able to begin to establish a secure perimeter."

"Yeah..." Sims started to reply as Evans pulled the pins for the emergency open on the Hover Truck's aft hatch. The small ribbon style explosive charge strung along the door's outer edge detonated with a loud crack, and sliced through the aft hatch's locking pins and hydraulic actuators. With nothing to support it, the door slammed to the ground with a hollow boom.

"Well that's one problem solved." Evans said coolly as he carefully slid out of the Hover Truck's wreckage, scanning the area with his as yet unfired rifle.

"Collapse back on the Hover Truck... Doc, you and Marco take the pilot's stretcher. Kieran, take your detachment and find us a quick, quiet way out of here. Everyone else form a defensive line around the Doc and Marco as they swing the stretcher. Keep your heads on swivels people, the sun is only just starting to climb and that's going to cut our stealth and tech advantages down. We need to find a quiet place and wait for a pickup." Sims ordered as she called up a tactical map of the city on her helmet mounted display.

"I think that building over there will work well enough for us." Jan said, indicating a small tower of flats.

"Looks good from here ma'am," Doc Evans said as he examined the building, "There are bound to be areas in there where we can keep young Ms. Fin safe until we find some way out of here.

"I like it," Kieran said

"Well that about settles it then,"

"Ma'am," Rapp said, "Central is calling in, there's another downed pilot nearby that they'd like us to recover."

"Damn it all… Alright Sparky, transfer the information to Kieran, we'll hole up and wait for them in that building. Kieran you know the building?"

"I got it ma'am." Kieran replied as he and his detachment quickly blended into the inky black predawn shadows cast by Oasis' remaining skyscrapers.

Kieran winced as another Zeon recon drone whined by. Another pilot had gone down close enough to their hidey-hole that he felt secure enough in going out and trying to secure the pilot. The pilot hadn't reported any injuries, but he did say that there were quite a few Zeon troops nearby and that they were getting closer and close to his position. In and of its self this was hardly a problem for the pilot or Kieran and his SAS team. However, from hard won experience, Kieran knew that pilots in that situation tended to panic and panicking pilots did extremely stupid things.

"Point, you sure this is a bright idea?" Soap said as he took cover behind a pile of rubble

"Not really..." Kieran muttered in reply, "but I tried to convince the poor bastard to head in our direction and he wouldn't fucking listen."

"For the love of it all," Brezhnev muttered, "When are we going to be able to rescue an intelligent pilot?"

"If they were intelligent," Gaz said, "They wouldn't be getting shot the hell down, would they now?"

"No, I don't suppose they would be." Brezhnev said

"Action forward!" Kieran hissed over the radio, silencing his team's banter, "Eyes on a Zeek squad moving through the building to our left."

"Fuck it all," Brezhnev said, "That's where our fucking pilot was holed up wasn't it?"

"I think so," Gaz replied, "I'll try and raise him. Hull 12, Hull 12 this is Knife 38 how copy?"

"Where are you 38? I've got Zeeks up the ass!" the pilot of Hull 12 hissed into his radio

"Relax 12; we've got eyes on your position." Gaz snapped, "Get to the top of the building, it's going to take them a while to sweep the building, and the farther away from them you can get yourself the better. Keep your head screwed on, we're coming in behind the Zeeks."

"Are we really coming in behind the damn Zeeks?" Brezhenv asked

"It's about all we can do Bear," Kieran said, "I'd rather come in and evac out through the damn roof, but that ain't gonna happen is it? Let's do this quick, quiet and dirty guys; knives, wires, and HKs at the ready."

As Kieran and his SAS detachment approached the building that their pilot had holed up in, they dropped their primary weapons to their slings and slid them around out of the way. As one, they drew their silenced Heckler & Koch MP-7A8 machine pistols. The little machine pistols had been around for centuries -as had the company that made them- but other than upgrades to construction materials and ammunition nobody had found a better weapon for their niche role on the battlefield. The hyper velocity 4.6mm sabot rounds were capable of shredding any infantry armor on the battlefield. The holographic sights mounted on their MP-7s allowed them near pinpoint accuracy, even when firing point and shoot style. The SAS team didn't draw their knives from their scabbards, but they did undo their knives' retention straps so that they could be unsheathed quickly. Each team member also pulled a thin piece of wire with two toggle handles on it from their web gear and clipped it to their carabineers. The wire was designed to be used as a garrote for silently taking out targets up close and personal.

As they approached the fence surrounding their objective, the team split into two elements and advanced on the two unwitting soldiers guarding the doorway. The two Zeon infantry troopers were more concerned with what was going on inside the building rather than watching for external threats; a fatal rookie error that would end up costing them and their comrades' lives. As the SAS detachment approached, running in a low crouch in the darkest areas they could, their soft soled boots whispered over the concrete. What little noise their advance did make was covered entirely by the sounds from inside the building. Neither Zeon soldier noticed Kieran or Gaz until the garrotes were around their necks.

"Distasteful business this," Kieran said as he dropped his target into a shadow to conceal it from detection.

"Indeed it is," Gaz replied as he followed Kieran's lead.

"Patrol headed our way boys, better un-ass the AO!" Soap whispered

"We're decamping now!" Kieran said as he moved through the still open door.

They swept through the first floor, years of training and experience allowing them to move through the building's first floor with near silence. They could easily have gone in with their full assault boots given that the Zeeks sounded like a herd of elephants above their heads. As Brezhnev led the team up the staircase leading to the second floor, he sighted a pair of soldiers watching the stairs and reached for his combat knife. Before he could get his knife out however, Kieran grabbed his wrist and gripped shook his head. Brezhnev paused long enough for Kieran to bring his MP-7 to his shoulder and fire two shots. The two shots ripped out with a sound that was barely above a cough. Neither sentry had enough time to recognize what was going on before they thumped overly loudly to the floor.

"Fuck!" Kieran grumbled as he heard one of the sentries helmet bounce down the stairs.

"Got that right," Soap said

"Just hope they didn't notice," Kieran muttered as a grenade went off overhead

"What in the hell was that?" Soap hissed

"Sounded like a goddamn frag!" Brezhnev hissed

"I know that you big oaf! What I'd love to know is who set the goddamn thing off!"

"Contact to the front!" Kieran hissed as a Zeon helmet appeared on the landing above them. Gaz had the best shot, so he whipped his MP-7 to his shoulder and fired a single shot. The 4.6mm projectile exited the weapons' sound suppressor and the sabot split from the inner projectile. The two halves of the sabot bounced off the walls harmlessly, but the deadly dart of the APDS round ripped through the helmet as if it were made of paper. The owner of the helmet's right hand convulsed and hosed the ceiling with a storm of 10mm projectiles from his battle rifle as his body collapsed to the ground.

"Shit!" all four SAS operators moaned at the same time as they swarmed up the stairs, MP-7s at the ready.

Sims moaned as another Zeon squad attempted to breach their building. This particular engagement had started with her teams spread out in the surrounding buildings to keep attention away from the building that had their wounded pilot and Doc Evans in it. However, they had been hit multiple times, by very determined Zeon troops which had forced her perimeter back within the building that she had been trying to keep the shooting out of.

While Sims was waiting for their SAS detachment to fall back on them, another pilot was shot down relatively close to their position and had managed to find his own way to them. On the way, the pilot had been wounded in an exchange of gunfire with a Zeon patrol. Fortunately for the pilot, the wound was only a flesh one, but having two wounded pilots under her unit's care complicated her situation greatly.

And given that her semi-tamed SAS operators hadn't called in yet, she knew that she was more than likely to have a third pilot to deal with in short order. In between the Zeon's attempts to take her position, she had Sparky screaming to the combat controller assigned to the sector they were operating in, trying to drum up _any_ support. At this point, she would have been satisfied with a company from the Home Guard, armed with their semi-automatic battle rifles. Even if the Home Guard soldiers couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from two feet, it'd at least give the Zeeks something to think about. However, every time HQ even bothered to respond to her calls for help and casvac, they told her that help was on the way and she simply needed to hold tight.

"Watch yourself Captain; wheels on the way in!" Jan called over the team's tactical net

"Lovely... Tinkerbelle, can you do anything about 'em?" Sims asked as she tried to drive a Zeon machine gun team around a corner with a long burst from her assault rifle."

"You want me to go and ask real nice Cap'n?" Tinkler asked as she spotted the wheeled APCs, "I've got a single NE round left, and that won't do diddley-squat in these conditions Cap'n."

"Damn it Tinkler! The last thing we need is a smart ass on the coms net! Does anyone have _anything_ that'll kill the bastards? Or at least piss 'em off enough to bugger off?" Sims asked as the lead APC began firing its 30mm auto-cannon at their position.

"I've got a 40mm HE grenade left... I can take a pot shot at one... doubt it'll do anything to a damn Buffalo though... might piss the gunner off somewhat though." Breakers replied

"I've got another 40HE and a smoke round..." Cpl. Marco replied.

"Can one of you hit the turrets?" Sims asked as both Buffalos' gunners swept the upper floors of the building they had taken cover in with their 30mm auto-cannons.

"If you want to see what 30mm VS SpyderSteel and flesh looks like..." Breakers replied as a 30mm shell exploded over his head.

"Alright... what do things look like on the opposite side?" Sims asked, "If we can't kill the damn Buffaloes we can decamp and move to another building..."

"Hate to burst your bubble Cap'n... but Lieutenant Fin won't survive a decamp and move," Doc Evans said

"Has she gotten worse?"

"Not really, but I'd rather not risk it..."

"Got it..." Sims mumbled as the gunner for the machine gun crew she had just driven around a corner got brave and made for a second go at firing at her.

A piece of rubble caught the tip of her barrel and kept her from pulling it all the way around in time to engage him with it. She struggled with her rifle, but it the forward lock ring for her rifle's sling was jammed into something and it wouldn't come free. As the machine gunner opened fire with his belt fed light squad machine gun, Sims reached down to her thigh and drew her FN Five-Seven pistol. The lightweight tactical pistol was the chosen backup pistol for the Federation's Special Air Service units, and because she -and her unit- had worked with Kieran and his SAS detachment for long enough, Kieran had sent off to a friend in the SAS's support division and had a set of them shipped out. They had even arranged for ammunition for them to be shipped in regularly with the supplies shipped to her SAS detachment.

Up to that moment, Sims had never had opportunity to fire her FN57 in anger, but that was about to change as she drew the pistol from her pocket and swept off the safety at the same time. She didn't even wait to get a proper firing position, as Kieran had also managed to secure the FN57's extended 30 round magazines instead of its standard 20 round one. As the sights lined up on her target, Sims began pulling the trigger and didn't stop until her pistol's slide locked back on an empty chamber. Without wasting time to check her target, Sims reached back into her pistol's pouch and slapped a fresh 30 round magazine into her pistol, making damn sure her backup weapon was ready to do its job again in the event her rifle failed her once more.

"You Ok Cap'n?" Jan asked

"Yeah... rifle got stuck," Sims replied, "Got the bastard though,"

"Stuck... like jammed stuck? Or stuck like stuck on something?"

"Stuck on something stuck something," Sims replied as she freed her rifle, "Sparky, you get anyone helpful on the net?"

"Yeah... same helpful bastard as before, says help is on the way and then tells me to clear the damn net."

"How about Red Crown, can they call in any support for us?"

"Tried that bastard too ma'am; I figure he must be related to the other silly bastard in Central..."

"Got it..." Sims muttered as someone else opened fire on their position.

"Looks like the Buffaloes have gotten bored and decided to fuck off." Jan reported from his rooftop spotting position

"Doubt they'll be gone for..." Sims said as a massive fireball bloomed between the buildings the two buffaloes had gone between

Soap could hardly keep the grin off of his face as he watched the second Buffalo's crew bail out of their flaming vehicle. The Buffalo's fuel tanks were mounted in a thinly armored section between the forward compartment which contained the driver, support gunner and vehicle commander and the troop compartment in the rear. Normally, they would have taken it out with an anti-tank weapon of any sort but as they were moving light, AT equipment had been left back at the base. However, Kieran's DSR-1 fired heavyweight .338 Lapua rounds at high velocity which had done the job well enough.

"A few well-placed shots..." Kieran started

"One Flare..." Brezhnev continued

"And presto, one Buffalo Bonfire pretty as you please!" Gaz said as he pulled his rifle to his shoulder and opened fire on a Zeon platoon that was trying to reorganize

"Kieran is that you?" Sims called

"Weren't me boss, I could swear to it!" He replied with a laugh as he kicked the downed pilot in the ass to get him moving quicker

"Load of bullshit," She replied, "What condition is your pilot in?"

"As long as you've got a wall for 'em to hide behind, we're squared away. The shit still has his pop-gun, so if we put him somewhere he can cover a door or something."

"Right," Sims replied as Kieran and his team activated their IFF tabs, "I see you guys on the HUD,"

"Roger," Kieran replied, "We'll be coming in from the east, down 27th Ave."

"Ok, we'll re-orient to provide cover. Sparky, do me a favor and see if you can raise some damn support, I don't care if you scare up a company of the Home Guard at this point. Jan, take your team and move down to provide cover for Kieran and the SAS detachment. I'll keep my team up above and we'll keep those bastards busy from up here." Sims ordered.

"THOSE ARE ANTI TANK WEAPONS!" Kieran shouted as an RPG exploded overhead, "Don't you know the fucking difference! Goddamn Zeeks don't know the difference between AP and AT weapons, what the hell is this world coming to?"

"Fuckin 'ell," Gaz muttered as another RPG exploded overhead showering them with cement and glass fragments, "Anyone know where that bastard's hiding?"

"No, but if we don't get this bastard under cover we're going to have issues..." Soap replied as he pulled their recovered pilot off of the ground

"I Figured as much... Over watch, get your heads out of your asses and find that damn RPG!" Kieran shouted as another RPG exploded over his head.

"Chill out McKnight! We're looking for the fuckers!" Jan shouted in reply

"Cool it guys, keep it professional. Sparky, leave the Zeeks to us get on the coms and see if you can get us some help eh?"

"Got it Cap'n," Rapp replied as he dropped his rifle to his sling and slid away from his firing position in order to try and get some assistance for them. With something somewhat solid between him and the incoming Zeon weapons fire, he would be able to get reconnected to the battlefield coms net without having to worry about getting wounded. Technically, he should have been able to deploy his coms unit's primary antenna and get connected to the net. However, he had disconnected the set from the network to save battery life because he didn't have another spare battery pack. He had also dropped the radio from the net right before the coms net's master encryption unit changed the encryption codes. Annoyingly, he would have to clear the previous encryption codes and then re-synch the radio to the network before he could even make an attempt at calling in for help. Rapp tapped the toe of his boot against a chunk of concrete next to his foot while he waited for the radio to boot up. As the radio's status light shifted in his HMD from orange to green, it began to pulse as it attempted to rejoin the 'net. His headset chirped, indicating that it was waiting for him to begin the authorization procedures. Using the keypad that came with his tactical computer, he began to punch in the requisite information to get his radio joined to the network. After hearing the radio chirp the authorized tones, Rapp slid his keypad back into its pouch, but before he could even make a call, a very irate coms operator came on the net demanding that he call in immediately.

"Sandhog Long wave, Sandhog Long wave this is Central are you on the net?"

"Central, this is Long wave go." Rapp replied

"It's about time Sandhogs, report current position and status."

"Central, Sandhog Long wave; we're located in what's left of a block of flats on the south east side of the intersection of 27th street and Hall. At the moment, we are heavily engaged and have three rescued pilots, two walking wounded and one critical that needs casvac immediate."

"Central Copies Sandhog Long wave, we're working on getting casvac links established to you."

"Say again Central?" Rapp said not sure he had heard right.

"Sandhog Long wave, we are working on establishing casvac links to you at the moment. Your position is in a relatively low-intensity area at the moment, so we're going to set up a forward casualty receiving point for your sector on your position. You have a company of infantry on the way for security, along with a field surgical team and their associated equipment. They're also bringing along resupply and rations packages for you. How copy Long wave?"

"Uh... Long wave Copies all Central, standby."

"Central standing by Long wave," The coms officer replied, glad that he wasn't on the other end of the radio as he could hear the sounds of a pitched infantry battle in the background.

"Cap'n..."

"What is it Sparky?" Alice asked

"Central... Central's setting us up as a FCRP on us."

"What?" Sims snapped, "A FCRP? Here?"

"That's what Central is saying ma'am," Rapp replied, "Apparently we're in a low-intensity area so we're being set up as the sector FCRP. Upside is we're getting some help, command's got a company of infantry and a field surgical team with the associated kit headed in our direction."

"Well that makes up for it somewhat," Sims replied tiredly, "Alright Rapp, get on the horn and tell the bastards to shag it. We're hanging out in the breeze here and I don't like risking our pilots like this.

"Roger that ma'am," Rapp replied as he switched from the team's tactical net back to his link to Central Ops Control, "Central, this is Sandhogs Long Wave, we're standing by to setup the FCRP now. Expedite the Infantry and resupply if possible, we're heavily engaged and running short of supplies."

"Central copies all Sandhog Long Wave, your infantry is on the way and should be there within fifteen minutes."


End file.
